i 



c v/ & $~; *r, 



HISTORIC AMERICANS. 



BY 



THEODORE PARKER. 



BOSTON: 

HORACE B. FULLEK, 
14 Bromfield Street. 

1870. 



ET 3o 



.3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

LYDIA D. PARKER, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
No. 19 Spring Lane. 



PREFACE. 



These lectures were prepared in 1858, for the Frater- 
nity Course, which had been instituted that year. They 
were carefully elaborated, being written out in full, and 
partly rewrkten with a view to publication. The lecture 
on Franklin was written over twice,* — three times, in 
fact, though the last reproduction was rendered neces- 
sary by the loss of the original manuscript. But three 
of them, however, were delivered in Tremont Temple ; 
and these were more than should have been attempted, 
for Mr. Parker was already so weak in this last autumn 
of his public service, that he made his way to the hall 
with difficulty, and barely sustained himself through the 
effort he was making. 

The lectures are printed from faithful copies of his 
manuscript, with no more correction than was actually 
required by occasional omissions that had to be made 

* Weiss's Life of Parker, i. p. 432. 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

good, by very infrequent defects that were easily repaired, 
or by misplaced references, which, it is needless to say, 
were here, as elsewhere in Mr. Parker's writings, exceed- 
ingly few. 

The lectures were prepared at a time when the anti- 
slavery agitation was at its height ; when, in Mr. Parker's 
judgment, it distinctly menaced war. The subject natu- 
rally occupies a large space in the biographies ; indeed, it 
furnished, probably, one of the motives for preparing 
them. That issue is dead. The war, to which the evil 
succumbed, broke out almost immediately after his de- 
cease, and accomplished by force what he hoped might 
be accomplished peacefully. A few passages, containing 
allusions to the ethics and politics of that by-gone epoch, 
would not be penned to-day ; but none will be sorry to 
read them who can weigh their importance as contribu- 
tions to history, or can estimate their value as illustra- 
tions of character. 

Mr. Parker's religious opinions were too vital to him 
to be excluded from any kind of discourse, and the 
reader of this volume may occasionally come across a 
phrase, or possibly a sentence, that will seem intrusive 
and objectionable. But such sentences and phrases are 
singularly rare, scarcely more frequent than the subject 



PREFACE. 5 

demanded, no more frequent than was demanded by his 
favorite method of treatment. 

That method is simple, clear, and exhaustive. Mr. 

Parker never wrote without a direct purpose, and the 

pur; [ways serious enough to engage the ear- 

t exercise of his ability. When he selected the char- 

rs of Historic Americans as themes for the lyceum, 
his object was not, as with most lecturers it is, to amuse 
an audience for an hour ; it was not to convey biographi- 
cal information in a popular form ; it was not to " do 

1 " in. a general sense ; much less was it, in a specific 

':, to do evil by affronting the reverence of his con- 
temporaries, or diminishing- the reputation of eminent 
men whom people far and near had lifted to a pedestal of 
honor. J lis design was to trace back to their sources, in 
the creative minds of the nation, the principles that have 

ted a controlling influence in the nation's history, 
and are still active in the institutions and the politics of 
the hour. lie would discuss great issues in a concrete 
form, showing how they were associated with character 
for better or wo: 

A further intention he doubtless had, — such an inten- 
tion as Mr. Everett had in the delivery of his oration on 
Washington, — to bring the p of great historic 



6 . PKEFACE. 

names to bear on the minds of his contemporaries, to 
clear their conceptions, confirm their belief, or tone up 
their courage. Grand examples are more convincing 
than ordinary precepts, and Mr. Parker was intensely 
persuaded that our grandest examples were on the side 
that most needed strengthening. 

But no side views of this sort tempted him to swerve 
a hair's breadth from the sternest loyalty to the truth. 
He made the truth serve his purpose when he could ; 
but it was not his way to manufacture truth to suit his 
purpose, nor was it his way to judge truth by its utility 
for his private or public ends. The truth he would have 
at any rate, whether it would serve him or no. It would 
serve itself, which was better. He went always to ori- 
ginal sources ; but not content with that, he made effort 
to purge his own mental vision, in order that no discol- 
oring or distorting feelings might make the truth seem 
to him other than it actually was. In all biographical 
studies his conscientiousness was a wonder. He laid on 
himself prodigious labor to satisfy it. Both hate and 
love were warned away from the canvas on which he was 
painting a character. 

These four portraits are as faithful as he, by any labor 
of his, could make them. Those who question his truth- 



PREFACE. / 

fulness, must first revise their own. If in some respects 
the portraits look unlike the " counterfeit presentments " 
that are shown in the print shops, it must not be hastily 
concluded that he has intentionally disfigured them. He 
may possibly have restored features and lines which care- 
less or too flattering copyists have misdrawn. 

It will not be out of place here to correct the impres- 
sion that Mr. Parker was a self-constituted image-breaker, 
who made iconoclasm a business, and delighted in shatter- 
ing great reputations, as Cromwell's troopers did in muti- 
lating statues of the saints. Of all the errors in regard 
to Mr. Parker, none are more completely errors than this, 
though others are more difficult to account for. In an 
age of false reverence, adulation, and sentimentalism, the 
man who tells the unadorned truth is a destroyer of idols. 
Such was Mr. Parker : an uncompromising idol-breaker. 
But he never broke the idol save with an intention to re- 
veal the man. To know a character was, in his judgment, 
better than to worship a simulacrum. If any readers of 
this volume feel a passing emotion of regret as a cher- 
ished illusion here and there fades, they will rejoice at 
last in the solid human qualities that take their place, — 
the grand columns of virtue which belong to humanity, 
and support the State. 



8 PREFACE. 

The truest compliment that can be paid to grand men, 
consists in the fearless judgment of their qualities, under 
the conviction that they will not only abide the test, but 
will be purified by it. What fancy loses reason gains. 
Were great men useful as ornaments in parlors, or as 
decorations in public halls, he would be their best delinea- 
tor who set them off with most imposing effect. But 
so long as great men are needed as exemplars, he will 
have a claim on the world's gratitude who shows pre- 
cisely what they exemplify. It is as important that we 
should know their foibles, as that we should know their 
strong points. The warning of their vices, if they had 
them, may be as useful as the encouragement of their 
virtues. What they seem to lose in being made to ap- 
pear human, is more than compensated by the sympathy 
with their noblest brothers, which all men need to feel. 

These lectures are published as they were written, in 
the hope of throwing light, not merely upon four majes- 
tic personages, but upon certain cardinal principles, far 
more majestic and far more worthy of veneration than 

they. 

0. B. F. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

FRANKLIN 13 



WASHINGTON 73 

JOHN ADAMS 147 

THOMAS JEFFERSON 260 



FRANKLIN. 



(ID 



FRANKLIN. 



At the beginning of the last century a hardy man, 
Josiah Franklin by name, born in England, the son 
of a blacksmith, himself a tallow-chandler, was liv- 
ing in a small house, in an obscure way, in Boston, 
then a colonial town of eight or ten thousand inhab- 
itants, in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. . 

On the 17th of January, at the Blue Ball, in 
Hanover Street, 1706,* his tenth son was born into 

* See Drake's History and Antiquities of Boston, page 492. 
" Franklin himself told Mrs. Hannah M. Crocker, as she told me 
in. 1828, that he was born at the sign of the Blue Ball, on the 
corner of Union and Hanover Streets, where his father then lived 
and carried on his business." Page 638, ib. " Mrs. Harriett A. T. 
Lewis, an intelligent and well-informed lady, well remembers hear- 
ing his birthplace spoken of by old persons when she was young, as 
a matter familiarly known to them ; namely, that Franklin was born 
at the sign of the Blue Ball in Hanover Street, as has been stated." 
It is important to note these authorities, because a building in Milk 
Street is marked and is popularly known as "The Birthplace of 
Franklin." There were other Franklins in Boston before Josiah. 
Sparks's Franklin, i. 539; Mass. Rec. ii. p. 71, iii. p. 238. 



14 FRANKLIN. 

this world, and, it being Sunday, he was taken to 
the meeting-house and publicly baptized the same 
day, according to the common custom of those 
times ; for then it was taught by the ministers that 
the devil watched about every cradle, ready to seize 
the souls of all babies dying before they got ecclesi- 
astically sprinkled with water, and that the ceremony 
of baptism would save them from his clutches until 
they could discern good from evil. The minister 
had a wig on his head, and Geneva bands about his 
neck. There was no Bible upon the desk of the 
pulpit, and he thought it a sin to repeat the Lord's 
Prayer. When he said, "This child's name is. Ben- 
jamin," how all those grim puritanic Bostonians 
looked on the tenth boy, the fifteenth child of the 
tallow-chandler ! and prudent aunts doubtless won- 
dered what he would do with such a family in those 
hard times. That little baby, humbly cradled, has 
turned out to be the greatest man that America ever 
bore in her bo'som or set eyes upon. Beyond all 
question, as I think, Benjamin Franklin had the 
largest mind that has shone this side of the sea, 
— widest in its comprehension, most deep-looking, 
thoughtful, far-seeing, of course the most original 
and creative child of the New World. 

For the last four generations no man has shed 
such copious good influence on America ; none 
added so much new truth to the popular knowl- 



FRANKLIN. 15 

edge ; none has so skilfully organized its ideas 
into institutions ; none has so powerfully and wise- 
ly directed the nation's conduct, and advanced its 
welfare in so many respects. No man now has so 
strong a hold on the habits and manners of the 
people. Franklin comes home to the individual 
business of practical men in their daily life. His 
homely sayings are the Proverbs of the people 
now. Much of our social machinery, academic, 
literary, philosophic, is of his device. 

Washington is a name that politicians snare the 
people with, that eulogists hold up to the world as 
without spot or blemish, and orators exhibit in 
order to make sure of rounds of applause. When 
I hear a politician refer to Washington I always 
expect slavery will follow next, though Washing- 
ton hated slavery himself. His great merit was 
integrity — a virtue which he possessed in the heroic 
degree. His function was to create an army, and 
administer the government, both of which he did 
with self-devotion, ability, and faithfulness. This 
it is that makes him such a rare example in the 
history of mankind. His is a name that will be 
honored as long as men remember great deeds, or 
are proud and emulous of great virtue. 

Let us now look this extraordinary Benjamin 
Franklin in the face, and see what he was. 



1G FRANKLIN. 

Here is a sketch which will show the geography 
and chronology of his life, a chart of his relation 
to time and space : — 

He was born in Boston, on the 17th of January, 
170G. Thence he ran away in the autumn of 1723, 
and in October found himself a new home in Phila- 
delphia, where he made his first meal in the street 
one Sunday morning from a draught of Delaware 
Pivcr water and a pennyworth of bread, giving 
twopence worth to a poor woman.* Such was 
his first breakfast and his earliest charity in his 
adopted state. Here he worked as a journeyman 
printer. Deceived by Keith, the Governor of 
Pennsylvania, he. went to England, landing there 
the 21th of December, 1724. He followed his 
trade in London for about two years. He re- 
turned to Philadelphia on the 11th of October, 
1726, and resumed his business as printer, enter- 
ing also into politics ; or, rather, I should say, he 
became a Statesman, for he was never a politician, 
but a Statesman from the beginning, who never 
solicited an office, nor used any indirection to 
retain one when it was in his possession. As 
agent for Pennsylvania, he again went to England 
in October, 1757, and returned to Philadelphia in 
November, 17G2. But he went back to England 

* Sydney Smith says that " there would be many more good 
Samaritans if it were not for the twopence and the oil." 



FRANKLIN. 17 

in December, 17G4, as agent for several colonies, 
and returned thence, 5th of May, 1775. He was 
sent ;is minister to France by the revolted colonies 
in 1770, whence, on September 14, 1785, he returned 
to Philadelphia, which he never left again. He was 
President, or what we should now call Governor, of 
Pennsylvania, from October, 1785, to October, 1788, 
and was also a member of the Federal Convention, 
which made the Constitution of the United States. 
He died on the 17th April, 1790, aged eighty-four 
years and three months, and his body lies buried at 
Philadelphia, in the corner of the churchyard, cl 
to the Quaker meeting-hoii 

Franklin spent a little more' than twenty-six years 
i:j Europe, more than twenty-three of them in vari- 
ous diplomatic services. He lived in Boston nearly 
eighteen years, was a citizen of Philadelphia more 
than sixty-six years, held his first public office in 
1736, and left office altogether in 1788, serving his 
state and nation in many public trusts something 
about fifty-two years. He was married in 1730, at 
the age of twenty-four. His wife died in 1774. He 
was forty-four years a husband, though for twenty- 
three years he was in Europe for the most part, 
while she remained wholly in Pennsylvania. He 
left two children, — an illegitimate son, William 
Ikmiple- Franklin, who afterwards became Governor 
of the colony of New Jersey, and was a tory, — and a 
2 



18 FRANKLIN. 

■ 

legitimate daughter, Sarah. Both of them married, 
and became parents long before his death. A few 
of his descendants are still living, though none, I 
think, bear the name of Franklin. Such is the 
material basis of facts and of dates. 

To understand the man, look at the most impor- 
tant scenes in his public life. 

I. A stout, hardy-looking boy, with a great head, 
twelve or fourteen years old, clad in knee breeches, 
with buckles in his shoes, is selling ballads in the 
streets of Boston, broadsides printed on a single 
sheet, containing what were called " Varses " in 
those times. One is " The Lighthouse Tragedy," 
giving an account of the shipwreck of Captain 
Worthilake and his two daughters, and the other, 
" The Capture of Blackbeard the Pirate." He 
wrote the "varses" himself, and printed them also. 
"Wretched stuff," he says, they were: no doubt 
of it. From eight to nine he has been in the 
grammar school, but less than a year; then in an- 
other public school for reading and writing for less 
than another year — a short time, truly; but he made 
rapid progress, yet "failed entirely in arithmetic." 
In school he studied hard. Out of doors he was a 
wild boy, — "a leader among the boys," — and some- 
times "led them into scrapes." After the age of ten 
he never saw the inside of a school-house as a pupil. 



FRANKLIN. 19 

Harvard College was near at home, and the Boston 
Latin School close by, its little bell tinkling to him 
in his father's shop ; but poverty shut the door in his 
face. Yet he would learn. He might be born poor, 
he could not be kept ignorant. His birth to genius 
more than made up for want of academic breeding. 
He had educational helps at home. His father, a 
man of middle stature, well set, and very strong, 
was not only handy with tools, but "could draw 
prettily." He played on the violin, and sang withal. 
Bather an austere Calvinist, a man of " sound under- 
standing." Careless about food at table, he talked 
of what was "good, just, and prudent in the conduct 
of life," and not of the baked beans", the corned beef, 
or the rye and Indian bread. The father had a few 
books: Plutarch's "Lives," "Essays to do Good," 
by Cotton Mather, a famous minister at the •" North 
End" of Boston, and besides, volumes of theological 
controversy and of New England divinity. Benja- 
min added some books of his own : Bunyan, Bur- 
ton's Historical Collection ; in all forty little volumes. 
He was fond of reading, and early took to writing 
poetry. Two children were born after him, making 
the family of the patriarchal number of seventeen. 
The father and mother * were never sick. The}* died 

* His mother was the daughter of Peter Folger, " a godly and 
learned Englishman, of excellent common sense, and well educated 
in surveying," who had settled in Nantucket. This Peter Folger 
came out to America with the famous Hugh Peters in 1635, and with 






i i; WKIJN. 

of cl»l age, as we ought ; he al eighty-nine, she at 
rwliiN five. The apple mellowed or shrivelled up, 
and then fell off, 1( did nol rot inwardly. There 
was an uncle Benjamin, like ilu' nephew in many 
things, who lived the other side oi' the water for a 
long timo, aud subsequently came here. Now and 
then be shot a letter to the hopeful Benjamin this 
side th^ Bea, poetical sometimes, whereof some frag- 
ments still remain; one addressed to him when he 
was four years old, tin* other when he was seven- 
teen; one warning him against military propensities, 
which tin* bab} in long clothes was thought to have 
displayed, the other encouraging the poetic aspira- 
tion. In fact, the uncle Bonjamin, like the nephew, 
had an inclination for "varses," and the specimens 
of liis which are extant are not so l>.*nl :is some 
w varses" that have been written since his time* 
\\ hen the nephew was seven years old, the mule, 
hearing of his poetic fervor, wrote, — 

•• ' lis timo for me to throw aside nay pen 
When hanging sleeves read, write, and rhyme like men. 
This forward spring foretells a plenteous crop, 
For if the bud bear grain, what will the top! "* 

Mary Morrell, who was a Bervant girl o[' Hugh Peters. Folger 

3 of Peters for twenty pounds, and she became his 

wife. So the grandmother of Dr. Franklin was bought for twenty 

pounds out of white slavery. This on the authority of F. ('. San- 

. of Nantucket 

• Sparks's Franklin, .Ml. Also Ms. vol of Mr. Emmonds. 



21 

Benjamin bad glin 

him a 

ithe of 

Ler tj 
de jij London ; " b 

1 
published in .'. 

I 

read. 

'J ; 

it i\i<- little m of 13 

ton. This b the 

othing le in it, notfa 

He o public app< 

jj. Next, in 1 ' 

ijamin I i 

I 



22 FEANKLIN. 

his first job for five shillings. There are men now 
alive in 1860 who remember the sign right well. Sinee 
he hit .Massachusetts his life has been quite event- 
ful. In Boston he wrote for his brother's newspaper, 
secretly at first, and afterwards openly. He was 
nominally its editor, and perhaps also its poet. He 
quarrelled with his brother James, ran away to Phil- 
adelphia, and has had a hard and tempestuous time of 
it. He did Avell as a journeyman printer in Phila- 
delphia during his nineteenth and twentieth years. 
But the governor took notice of him, swindled him, 
and sent him to England on a fool's errand. Wher- 
ever he fell he touched ground with his feet. In 
London he followed his craft nearly two years, 
making friends and foes. He was a wild young 
man, and led himself into dissipations and difficul- 
ties. He deserted Miss Read, the young woman of 
Philadelphia to whom he was betrothed. He kept 
low company sometimes, not only of bad men, but 
of evil women also, "spending a good deal of his 
earnings at plays and at public amusements." In 
quite early life vices of passion left their stain on 
him, which he afterwards took great pains to wipe 
out. But even now, at twenty-one, he is industri- 
ous, temperate, frugal, forecasting, punctual, and 
that to an extraordinary degree. He works late 
and early, not disdaining to wheel home in a barrow 
the paper he bought for his trade. "He that would 



FItANKLIN. 23 



thrive, must rise at live : " he knew it before he was 
twenty. He had read many books, nay, studied 
them ; the Spectator, the memorable things of Xeno- 
phon, Cocker's Arithmetic, books on navigation, 
which helped him to a little geometry, Locke on 
the Understanding, Shaftesbury, Collins, with the ec- 
clesiastical replies to the free-thinkers ; and in Lon- 
don he read many works not elsewhere accessible. 
He wrote, also, with simplicity, strength, and beau- 
ty, having taken great pains to acquire a neat and 
easy style. There is a diary of his, written when he 
was only twenty. He was now twenty-one. He 
soon became editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette, 
then bookseller, then almanac maker, then postmas- 
ter of Philadelphia, continuing always his printing 
trade. He had many irons in the .fire, yet not one 
too many, for he was careful that none burned. He 
became connected with politics, and was on the side 
of the people, which is not often the popular side, 
and is seldom counted respectable. The change 
from the boy of fourteen, selling ballads in Boston, 
to the youth of twenty one, printing Quaker books, 
or to the mature man, printer and bookseller, is 
only a natural development. 

III. Now he is forty-six years old. In June, 
1752, attended by his son twenty-one years old, he 
is in the fields near Philadelphia as a thunder-cloud 



2 I FHANKLIN. 

comes up. He hoists a kite, covered with a silk hand- 
kerchief, an iron point at its head. He lets it fly 
towards the cloud. He holds by a short end of non- 
conducting silk the long string of hemp, a conductor 
of electricity. An iron key hangs at the joining of 
the silk with the hemp. He touches the key. The 
lightning of heaven sparkles in his hand. The 
mystery is solved. The lightning of the heavens 
and the electricity of the chemist's shop are the same 
thing. The difference is only in quantity; in kind 
they are the same. An iron point will attract the 
lightning. A string of hemp or wire will conduct 
it to the ground. Thunder has lost its destructive 
terrou. The greatest discovery of the century is 
made, the parent of many more not dreamed of then 
or yet. Truly this is a great picture. 

Between Franklin, the young printer of twenty- 
one, and Franklin, the philosopher, at forty-six, 
many events have taken place. The obscure printer of 
1727 is now a famous man, inclining towards riches. 
He has had many social and civil honors. He has 
been justice of the peace (the title then meant some- 
thing), afterwards alderman, clerk of the General As- 
sembly, then member of the Assembly, then speaker, 
then postmaster of Philadelphia, then Postmaster^ 
General of all the colonies. His Almanac has made 
him more widely known than any man in America; 
known to the rising democracy, respected and fol- 



FRANKLIN. 25 

lowed, too, by the mass of the people. There are 
hundreds of families, nay, thousands, with only two 
books ; one the Bible, which they read Sundays, and 
the other his " Poor Richard's Almanac," which they 
read the other six days of the week ; and as its daily 
lessons are short, they are remembered forever. 
The Almanac seems to have perished in our time. So 
the leaves which grew on the Charter Oak, in Connec- 
ticut, a hundred years since, have all perished ; but 
every crop of leaves left its ring all round the trunk. 
The Almanac has perished, but the wisdom of Frank- 
lin still lives in the consciousness and conduct of the 
people. 

He has put his thought into Philadelphia, and in 
twenty-five years organized its municipal affairs, its 
education and charity, more wisely than any city in 
the world. He is in correspondence with the most 
eminent men of science in America, and has a name 
also with scientific men in England, France, Ger- 
many, and Italy. After the age of twenty-one he 
studied and learned Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, 
German, and very soon became able to read all these 
languages, which, at a later day, the scholars of so 
many nations used in bestowing praises on this 
printer-philosopher, who had snatched the lightning 
out of the sky, and had undertaken yet greater and 
more difficult works. The wonderful discovery is 
known all over Europe, and the two colleges of New 



26 FRANKLIN. 

England, Yale leading the way, honor themselves by 
calling him Master of Arts. They adopt this runa- 
way apprentice, this heretical tamer of lightning, 
into the company of their academic children. Soon 
the splendid colleges of all Europe confer their hon- 
ors, transmit to him their medals, give him their 
diplomas, and hereafter it is "Dr. Franklin," and no 
longer plain " Mr. Benjamin." From the sale of the 
ballads to the rope of the lightning, some thirty years 
have passed, — a long step of time, but one by which 
he mounted very high. 

IV. In 1776, in a small room at Philadelphia, 
there are five men draughting the Declaration of In- 
dependence, — Livingston from New York, Jefferson 
from Virginia, Franklin, Sherman, and John Adams, 
New England born, all three of them, Massachusetts 
boys, poor men's sons, who had fought their way to 
eminence ; their birth to talent better than their 
breeding to academic culture. Behind them all 
stand Samuel Adams, another great man of Massa- 
chusetts, tall and valiant, also a poor man's son. 
Active and noiseless, he inspires the five companions 
for this great work, with his thought, and courage, 
and trust in God. These are the men who are mak- 
ing the Declaration of Independence. Virginia fur- 
nished the popular pen of Jefferson. Massachusetts 
the great ideas, the "self-evident truths," of the Dec- 



FRANKLIN. 27 

laration itself. New to the rest of the world, they 
had been " Resolved " in the meetings of Boston, and 
in other obscure little New England towns. House- 
hold words they were to her, which our forefathers' 
pious care had handed down. 

This is a wide prospect. A whole continent now 
opens before us. 

The curtain is lifted high. You see the young 
nation in its infancy. K Hercules in his cradle," said 
Franklin; but with a legion of the mystic serpents 
about him. If the rising sun shines auspicious, yet 
the clouds threaten a storm, long and terrible. 

In the interval from 1752 to 1776, between the act 
of "the thunderbolt of heaven," and that of "the 
sceptre of the tyrant," much has taken place. Frank- 
lin has been chosen member of the first Colonial Con- 
gress, which met at Albany in 1754, to protect the 
Provinces from the French and Indians. His far- 
reaching mind there planned the scheme of the 
Union for common defence anions: all the colonies. 
This the British government disliked ; for if the 
colonies should form a Union, and the people be- 
come aware of their strength, they would soon want 
independence. Also Franklin has set military ex- 
peditions on foot ; he and another young Buckskin, 
furnishing most of the little wisdom which went with 
General Braddock and his luckless troop. He has 
been a colonel in actual service, and done actual work, 



28 FRANKLIN. 

too. He it was who erected the fortresses all along 
the frontier between the English and French pos- 
sessions west of Pennsylvania. He had been sent to 
England as a colonial agent to remonstrate against 
the despotism of the proprietaries. He was also 
appointed agent for Georgia, New Jersey, and Mas- 
sachusetts, and was commissioned to look after their 
rights, and protect them from the despotism of the 
Kins: and Parliament. He was examined before the 
House of Commons in 1776, and gave admirable tes- 
timony as to the condition and character of the colo- 
nies, and as to the disposition and temper of America 
towards the Stamp Act. His cool, profound, and 
admirable statements, for the most part made without 
premeditation or anticipation of the questions pro- 
posed to him, astonished the English Parliament. 
M What used to be the pride of the Americans ? " 
asked a questioner. "To indulge in the fashions 
and manufactures of Great Britain." " What is now 
their pride ? " " To wear their old clothes over again 
till they can make new oiies." He found that some 
of the first men of Boston, Governor Hutchinson, 
Lieutenant Governor Oliver, and other Boston tories, 
"citizens of eminent gravity" in those times, had 
written official and private letters to a conspicuous 
member of Parliament, infamously traducing the 
Colony of Massachusetts, and pointing out means 
for destroying the liberties of all the colonies and 



FRANKLIN. 20 

provinces, so as to establish a despotism here in 
America. He obtained these letters, private yet 
official, and sent them to a friend in Boston, Mr. 
Gushing, a timid man, speaker of the Massachusetts 
House of Representatives.* They were laid before 
the house and printed. Massachusetts, in conse- 
quence, sent a petition to the king, asking that these 
treacherous officers be removed from office. This 
righteous act, exposing the secret villany of officials, 
drew on Franklin the wrath of the New England 
tones, and of the rulers of Old England. For this 
he was brought before the privy council of the King 
of England on January 29, 1774. A great array 
of famous men were in attendance, five and thirty 
lords and others. There Mr. Wedderburn, the 
king's Solicitor General, insulted him with such abuse 
as only such a man could know how to invent. Be- 
fore this audience of five and thirty lords, f who were 

* Lord John Kussell's correspondence of Fox, p. 124. Franklin 
got the Hutchinson and Oliver letters in 1774, from John Temple, 
who was a commissioner of customs of Boston. These letters were 
addressed to Thomas Whately, under Secretary of State, a private 
friend, but a private friend in office. 

t For an account of this examination, see Dr. Bowring's Memoir 
of Jeremy Bentham, Chap. III. p. 59. On the 3d of May, 1774, 
VVedderburn (afterwards, in 17S0, created Baron Loughborough, and 
Earl Rosslyn, in 1801) and Governor Hutchinson were burnt in effigy 
in the city of Philadelphia. 

"VVedderburn had called Franklin "a man of three letters," mean- 
ing u fur" (which signifies thief), and quoted from Zanga's speech 



30 FRANKLIN. 

seated, did Franklin stand for ten hours and listen to 
this purchased sycophant. " He has forfeited all the 
respect of societies and of men," said the courtier. 
"It is impossible to read his account expressing the 
cruellest and most deliberate malice, without horror." 
The councillors of England cheered this tin pedler 
of malignant rhetoric. But Franklin " stood con- 
spicuously erect, without the smallest movement of 
any part of his body," and kept his countenance as 
immovable as if his features had been made of wood. 
He appeared on this clay in a suit of Manchester vel- 
vet, which it was noticed he did not again wear in 
England.* He was turned out of his office of Post- 
master-General of the American colonies that very 
night. 

in the play of the " Revenge." See Lord J. Russell's Correspon- 
dence of Fox, vol. i. p. 125. 

* The writer does not pursue the story of this suit of Manchester 
velvet, which it has been commonly understood was laid aside by 
Franklin, and was afterwards designedly worn by him when he came 
to sign the treaty of Peace at Paris, on the 80th Novemher, 1782. 
In this he has followed the cautious and accurate Mr. Sparks, who 
discredits the authorities upon which Lord Brougham has adopted 
the story. (Vol. i. Sparks's Franklin, 488.) But now it seems to 
rest upon unquestionable authority, notwithstanding Mr. Sparks's 
disclaimer. Lord John Russell considers it must be true, because 
Lord St. Helens (the envoy of England who also signed the treaty) 
told the story to Lord Holland, and said that Franklin informed them 
of it "with a triumphant air"! Lord St. Helens could not speak 
of this without indignation. See also Bowring's Memoir of Bentham, 
Chap. III. p. 59. 



FRANKLIN. 



31 



This was the philosopher whom the learned acade- 
mies of England, and of all Europe, had honored for 
taking the thunderbolt out of the sky ; now in that 
little room he is wrenching the sceptre from tyrants, 
making the Declaration of Independence, for 
which alone Britain would give him a halter. Mure 
than twenty years before he had sought to establish 
a Union between the colonies ; now he seeks Inde- 
pendence. He would build up the new government 
on self-evident truths, that all men are created equal, 
each endowed by their Creator with certain unalien- 
able rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. He is an old man now, more 
than seventy years of age ; an old man, lame with 
the gout, but active, as the sun is active with light. 
He is the most popular man in America, the most 
influential man in the American Congress, — save only 
the far-seeing and unflinching Samuel Adams, — the 
greatest, the most celebrated, the most conciliating. 
It is a grand act, this moulding the progress of per- 
manent and eternal principles, to form the American 
government. The world saw none grander in that 
century. There, for the first time in history, a na- 
tion laid the foundation of its state on the natural 
law that all governments shall uphold all men's 
right, not a few men's privilege. 

V. Franklin, at Paris, is negotiating the treaty of 



32 FRANKLIN. 

peace between America and- Great Britain in 1783, 
in connection with John Adams, Jefferson, Laurens, 
and Jay. He accomplished the work, put an end to 
all hostility with England, and secured the acknowl- 
edgment of our independence. The war of eight sad 
years (1775-1783) was now over. They had been 
to him years of intense activity at the court of 
France, where he was not only Am-erican Minister, 
but Judge in Admiralty and Consul General, charged 
with many and very discordant duties. Seventy- 
seven years old, he now sets the seal of triumph on 
the act of the American people. What was only a 
Declaration in 1776, is now a fact fixed in the his- 
tory of mankind. Washington was the Franklin of 
camps, but Franklin was the Washington of courts ; 
and the masterly skill of the great diplomatist, the 
patience which might tire but which never gave out ; 
the extraordinary shrewdness, dexterity, patience, 
moderation, and silence with which he conducted the 
most difficult of negotiations, are not less admirable 
than the coolness, intrepidity, and caution of the 
great general in his most disastrous campaign. Now 
these troubles are all over. America is free, Brit- 
ain is pacific, and Franklin congratulates his friends. 
" There never was a good war or a bad peace ; " and 
yet he, the brave, wise man that he was, sought to 
make the treaty better, endeavoring to persuade 
England to agree that there should be no more 



FRANLLIN. 33 

temptation to privateering, and that all private 
property on sea and land should be perfectly safe 
from the ravages of war. Bat in 1783 Britain had 
not come nearer to it than the administration in 
America had in 1857. Franklin wished to do in 
1783 what the wisest negotiators tried to accomplish 
in April, 1856, in the treaty of Paris. 

VI. Franklin, an old man of eighty-four, is 
making ready to die. The great philosopher, the 
great statesman, he has done with philosophy and 
state craft, not yet ended his philanthropy. He is 
satisfied with having taken the thunderbolt from the 
sky, bringing it noiseless and harmless to the ground ; 
he has not yet done with taking the sceptre from 
tyrants. True, he has, by the foundation of the 
American state on the natural and inalienable rights 
of all, helped to set America free from the despotism 
of the British king and Parliament. None has done 
more for that. He has made the treaty with Prussia, 
which forbids privateering and the war-like plunder 
of individual property on land or sea. But now he 
remembers that there are some six hundred thousand 
African slaves in America, wdiose bodies are taken 
from their control, even in time of peace — peace to 
other men, to them a period of perpetual war. So, 
in 1787, he founds a society for the abolition of slavery. 
He is its first President, and in that capacity signed a 
3 



34 FRANKLIN. 

petition to Congress, asking "the restitution of lib- 
erty to those unhappy men, who alone in this land 
of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage ; " 
asks Congress " that you will step, to the very verge 
of the power vested in you for discouraging every 
species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men." 
This petition was the last public act of Franklin, the 
last public document he ever signed. He had put 
his hand to the Declaration of Independence ; to the 
treaties of alliance with France and Prussia ; to the 
treaty of peace with Great Britain ; now he signs 
the first petition for the abolition of slavery. 

Between 1783 and 1790 what important events had 
taken place ! For three years he had been President 
of Pennsylvania, unanimously elected by the Assem- 
bly every time save the tirst, when one vote out of 
seventy-seven was cast against him. He had been a 
member of the Federal Convention, which made the 
Constitution, and, spite of what he considered to be 
its errors, put his name to it. Neither he, nor 
Washington, nor indeed any of the great men who 
helped to make that instrument, thought it perfect, 
or worshipped it as an idol. But now, as his last 
act, he seeks to correct the great fault, and blot, and 
vice of the American government — the only one 
which, in seventy-six years, has given us much 
trouble. The petition was presented on the 12th 
of February, 1790. It asked for the abolition of the 



FRANKLIN. 35 

slave trade, and for the emancipation of slaves. A 
storm followed ; the South was in a rage, which lasted 
till near the end of March. Mr. Jackson, of Geor- 
gia, defended the "peculiar institution." The ancient 
republics had slaves ; the whole current of the Bible, 
from Genesis to Revelation, proved that religion 
was not hostile to slavery. On the 23d of March, 
1790, Franklin wrote for the National Gazette the 
speech in favor of the enslavement of Christians. He 
put it into the mouth of a member of the Divan of 
Algiers. It was a parody of the actual words of Mr. 
Jackson, of Georgia, as delivered in Congress a few 
clays before ; the text, however, being taken out of the 
Koran. It was one of the most witty, brilliant, and 
ingenious things that came from his mind. This was 
the last public writing of Dr. Franklin ; and, with 
the exception of a letter to his sister and one to Mr. 
Jefferson, it was the last line which ran out from his 
fertile pen, — written only twenty-four days before his 
death. What a farewell it was ! This old man, "the 
most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers," the most 
famous man in America, now in private life, waiting 
for the last angel to unbind his spirit and set him free 
from a perishing body, makes his last appearance 
before the American people as President of an aboli- 
tion society, protesting against American slavery in 
the last public line he writes ! One of his wittiest 
and most ingenious works is a plea for the bondman, 



36 FRANKLIN. 

adroit, masterly, short, and not to be answered. It 
was fit to be the last scene of such a life. Drop 
down the curtain before the sick old man, and let his 
healthy soul ascend unseen and growing. 

Look, now, at the character of Dr. Franklin. All 
the materials for judging him are not yet before the 
public, for historians and biographers, like other at- 
torneys, sometimes withhold the evidence, and keep 
important facts out of sight, so as to secure a ver- 
dict which does not cover the whole case. There 
are writings of Franklin which neither the public 
nor myself have ever seen. Enough, however, is 
known of this great man to enable us to form a just 
opinion. Additional things would alter the quantity, 
not the kind. The human faculties, not pertaining 
to the body, may be divided into these four : the in- 
tellectual, the moral, the affectional, and the religious. 
Look at Franklin in respect to each of the four. 

I. He had an intellect of a very high order, — 
inventive, capacious, many-sided, retentive. His life 
covers nearly the whole of the eighteenth century. 
Ten years he was the contemporary of Leibnitz, twen- 
ty-one of Sir Isaac Newton. He was sixty-three 
years old when Alexander Humboldt and Cuvier 
were born. He embraced Voltaire. His orbit was 
intersected by that of Berkeley, Montesquieu, Hume, 
Kant, Priestley, Adam Smith. But in the eighty- 



FRAXKLIN. 37 

four years to which his life extended, I find no mind, 
which, on the whole, seems so great. I mean so 
generally ahle, various, original, and strong. Others 
were quite superior to him in specialities of intellect, 
— metaphysical, mathematical, and poetical. Many 
surpassed him in wide learning, of literature, or 
science, and in careful and exact culture ; but none 
equalled him in general largeness of power, and 
great variety and strength of mind. In an age of 
encyclopaedias, his was the most encyclopedic head 
in all Christendom. In the century of revolution, 
his was the most revolutionary and constructive in- 
tellect. He had no nonsense, was never eccentric. 
The intellectual faculties may be thus conveniently 
distributed : — 

1. The understanding, the practical power, which 
seeks economic use as the end. 2. The imagina- 
tion, the poetic power which seeks ideal beauty 
as the end. 3. The reason, the philosophic power, 
which seeks scientific truth as the end, which is par- 
ent alike of use and beauty, the Martha and Mary 
of the family. Franklin had a great understanding, 
a moderate imagination, and a great reason. He 
could never have become an eminent poet or orator. 
With such, the means is half the end. He does not 
seem to have attended to any of the fine arts, with the 
single exception of music. He was not fond of works 
of imagination, and in his boyhood he sold Bunyan's 



38 FRANKLIN. 

Pilgrim's Progress to buy Burton's Historical Col- 
lodions. Perhaps he underrated the beautiful and the 
sublime. I do not remember, in the ten volumes of 
his writings, a line containing a single reference to 
either. This defect in his mental structure continu- 
ally appears in his works and in his life. Hence, 
there is a certain homeliness and lack of elegance in 
his writings, and sometimes a little coarseness and 
rudeness. Hence, also, comes the popular judgment 
that he was not a high-minded man. Kant," Kepler, 
Descartes, Leibnitz, Schelling, were men of great 
imagination, which gives a particular poetic charm 
to their works that 3^011 do not find in the Sax- 
on philosophers. Bacon, Locke, Newton, Adam 
Smith, were men of vast ability, but not imaginative 
or poetic. Franklin thinks, investigates, theorizes, 
invents, but never does he dream. No haze hangs 
on the sharp outline of his exact idea to lend it an 
added charm. Besides this immense understanding, 
Franklin had an immense reason, which gave him 
great insight and power in all practical, philosophic, 
and speculative matters. He was a man of the most 
uncommon common sense. He saw clearly into the 
remote causes of things, and had great power of 
generalization to discuss the universal laws, the one 
eternal principle, or the manifold and floating facts. 
He did not come to his philosophic conclusions and 
discoveries by that poetic imagination which creates 



FRANK LI 39 

hypothesis after hypothesis, until some one fits the 

did he seem to reach them by that logical 
pro inch is called induction. tat he rather 

perfected hie wonderful invention- by bis own simple 
greatness of understanding and of reason, a -ponta- 

ts instinct of causality, which led him to the i 
at once. J Jo announced his discoveries with no pa- 
rade. U>- does the thing, and saj thing about it. 

if it were the commonest thing in the world. His 
simplicity appear- not only in his manners and in 
his life, hut also in his intellectual method. Accord- 
ingly, L _ at inventor of new ideas in sci- 
ence, the philosophy of matter, and in politics, the 
philosophy el' .State- : in both running before the 
experience of the world. If only his philosophic 
writings had come down to us, we should say, "Here 

a mind of the first order, — a brother of L 
nitz, Newton, Cuvier, Humboldt. " It' nought but 
his political writings red, his thoughts 

on agriculture, manufactures, commerce, finance, the 
condition and prospect of the colonies, the effect of 
certain taxes on them, the historical development of 
America and her ultimate relation to England, then 

mould say, "Here was one of the greatest polit- 
ical thinkers of the age or of the world.'' For 
while he anticipated the scientific discoveries of fu- 
ture philosophers, he does the same in the depart- 
ment- of the politician and the statesman. He 



40 FRANKLIN. 

understood easily the complicated affairs of a Na- 
tion, and saw clearly the great general laws which 
determine the welfare of the individual or of the 
State. Yet he made occasional mistakes ; for the 
swift forethought of genius, on the whole, is not so 
wise as the slow experience of the human race. No- 
body is as great as everybody. Constructive as well 
as inventive, he was a great organizer. He knew 
how to make his thought a thing, to put his scientific 
idea into matter, making a machine, his social idea 
into men, creating an institution. He could produce 
the maximum of result with the minimum outlay of 
means. His contrivances, mechanical and social, are 
many and surprising. He improved the printing 
press, invented stereotyping, and manifold letter- 
writers. He cured smoky chimneys of their bad 
habits. He amended the shape and the rig of 
ships. He showed the sailors how they might take 
advantage of the Gulf Stream to shorten their east- 
ward transit of the Atlantic, and how to steer so as 
to avoid it on the westward passage. He told them 
how a few men might haul a heavy boat, and how they 
might keep fresh provisions at sea. He suggested im- 
provements in the soup-dishes of sailors, and in the 
water-troughs of horses. He introduced new kinds 
of seeds, grass, turnips, broom-corn, curious beans 
from England, vines from France, and many other 
vegetables and plants. He drained lands skilfully, 



FRANKLIN. 41 

and gathered great crops from them. He reformed 
fireplaces, and invented the Franklin stove. First 
of all men he warmed public buildings. He had a fan 
on his chair, moved by a treadle, so as to drive away 
the flies. He made him spectacles, with two sets of 
glasses, for far and near sight. He invented a musi- 
cal instrument, and improved the electrical machine. 
He discovered that lightning and electricity are the 
same, proving it in the simplest and deepest and 
most satisfactory manner, by catching the actual 
Lightning. He first discerned the difference be- 
tween positive and negative electricity. 

He taught men to protect buildings from light- 
ning, and would use electricity to kill animals with- 
out pain, and to make lough meat tender and diges- 
tible. "There are no bounds," says he, in 1751, "to 
the force men may raise and use in the electrical way ; 
for little may be added to little, ad infinitum, and so 
accumulated, and then, afterwards, discharged "to- 
gether at once." He invented a phonographic alpha- 
bet, which does not now look so strange as in 1768. 
He improved the wheels of carriages, the form of 
wind-mills and water-mills, and the covering of roofs. 
First of all men, he induced the citizens of Philadel- 
phia to construct foot pavements (which we call side- 
walks), and to place crossing-stones in their most 
frequented streets. In London, he first proved that 
streets could be swept in dry weather as well as hoed 



42 FRANKLIN. 

and scraped in wet weather. He demonstrated this 
fact, by hiring an old woman to sweep the street in 
front of his house. Thus this Yankee printer taught 
the Londoners a useful lesson, now universally known. 

At the age of twenty-two, in 1728, Franklin found- 
ed the first American Club for mutual improvement. 
It was called a "Junto." In 1744 he was the founder 
of " the American Philosophical Society,"' the first 
scientific association on this continent. He estab- 
lished, in 1751, the first American free school out- 
side of New England, and he originated the first 
social library in the world. He organized the first 
fire company in America, and the first night-watch in 
Philadelphia. In 1741 he started the first magazine 
in America, — the General Magazine, — the forerun- 
ner of the North American, Examiner, New England 
Review, and a great host more. In the Quaker State 
of Pennsylvania, in 1744, he first organized the mili- 
tary force, getting ten thousand subscribers to main- 
tain a volunteer militia. The women provided silken 
banners, which Franklin supplied with appropriate 
mottoes. He was himself colonel of the Philadel- 
phia regiment. 

He first enrolled men for the military defence of 
the Quaker city, in 1744, when Spanish pirates came 
up the river, and threatened to burn the town. He 
planned the admirable militaiy organization for the 
whole colony of Pennsylvania, in 1754, for defence 



FRANKLIN. 43 

against the French and Indians, and in 1755 fur- 
nishcd the commissariat trains of General Brad- 
dock. He first proposed the union of all the prov- 
inces, in 1754, and in 1775 he first made the plan of 
a confederacy of them all, which could not he adopted 
till 1778, though then with improvements. Such 
was the distracted condition of all things in America 
at that time, that this organizing skill seemed most 
of all things needful ; and Franklin's great power 
was not only in invention, but in organization quite 
as much. lie had a genius for creation and adminis- 
tration. He easily saw what things belonged to- 
gether, and found the true principle which would 
make many coalesce and become an association, af- 
fording freedom to each individual, and social unity 
to all. 

Yet his plan for the Constitution of the State of 
Pennsylvania did not work well ; nor would his 
scheme, that the Federal officers should serve with- 
out salary, have proved to be desirable or practica- 
ble. His design for the excitement of the ambition 
of children at school I think was a great mistake. 
If he had lived in 1857, instead of in 177G, he would 
not have left a hundred pounds to be expended in 
medals of silver or gold, which, while they stir the 
ambition of few, dishearten and discourage man}', 
and leave heart-burnings amongst all. He could not 
foresee what it is no merit in schoolmasters and 



44 FRANKLIN. 

schoolmistresses to perceive after him. He founded 
many societies, which still continue, and his schemes 
have been extended far and wide. The people un- 
derstood this genius for all kinds of practical and 
social arrangement, and put his name to many insti- 
tutions of which he was but remotely the founder. 
Churches are called after Paul, Peter, James, John, 
but lire companies, debating societies, book clubs, 
libraries, hospitals, and the like, are named for 
Franklin. Institutions for theology have the name 
of theologic apostles, but institutions for humanity 
bear the name of this great apostle of benevolence. 
Administrative as well as constructive, he was a 
most able manager. He knew how to deal with 
men, leading them to accept bis conclusions, and 
accomplish his purposes. Here he was helped by 
his great shrewdness and knowledge of the world, 
and also by his admirable geniality and kindness of 
manner, good-humor, mirth, and reserve. He did 
not drive men, but led them, and that often with a 
thread so delicate that they did not see it. He did 
not affect to lead, but only to follow. So the wise 
mother conducts her refractory boy to school for the 
first time, not dragging him by the hand or by the 
ear, and hauling him there, school-mother fashion, 
but by throwing something forward, and letting lit- 
tie Master Wilful run and pick it up ; then varying 
the experiment, and so conquering without a battle* 



FttANKLOT. 45 



ll<; knew 



li Men should be taught as if you taught them not, 
And thing* unknown proposed as thingi forgot." 

Iff- took care not to wound the vanity of men, or 
hurt, their self-esteem, by exhibiting his own immense 
superiority of knowledge, insight, and skill. IJo had 
tact, — that admirable art of hitting the nail on 
the head at the first strike, and not bruising the 
fingers while it is driven home. Ho was one of 
the most adroit, of diplomatists, fully equal to the 
European practitioners, whose fathers, from genera- 
tion to generation, bad been accustomed "to lie 
abroad for the advantage of their country." Can- 
did and open with the honest, none know better 
than he how to manage a cunning man. He know 
how to conciliate. When others made a speech, be 
told a story, or invented a parable, and so cheaply 
drew the thunder out. of the hostile cloud. If ho 
could not. help knowing the faults of the men he 
was obliged to work with, ho forbore from letting 
them see what ho know.* JJo could speak at the 
right time, none more silvery ; but he knew when 
silence was golden, and had a wise reserve. Hence 

* Jefferson declared that the charge against Franklin of subservi- 
ency to Franee "bad not a ihadow of foundation," and "that it 
might truly be said that they [the government of France] «rere more 
under his influence than he under theirs. Randall's Jefferson, vol. 
iii. p. 440, note. 



46 FRANKLIN. 

he was often thought to dissemble and feign, because 
he said nothing. He knew how to work, and when 
to wait. When his iron was cold he heated it, and 
only struck it when it was hot ; and he could make 
his chimney burn its own smoke. 

Singularly modest, he claimed very little for him- 
self of merit, honor, or originality. He let others, 
when it helped the common cause, use his political 
or philosophical thought as if it were common prop- 
erty, or the private estate of any claimant ; knowing, 
as he said, that it would all come right in the end, 
without his wasting any words now. With abun- 
dance of private enemies, he had no private quarrels, 
which it always takes two to make. Calumnies 
against him he left time to answer. Where are they 
now? Assaulted by some- of the wiliest, craftiest, 
and most insidious, he never broke a private friend- 
ship. Some he convinced, some he wooed, others 
he gently drew, and some he took up in his great 
fatherly arms, and carried, and kissed, and set them 
down just where he would. He quarrelled only with 
the public enemies of his country, but took the mild- 
est wars of allaying trouble. When the* Constitu- 
tional Convention was excited and inharmonious, 
Franklin suggested that their meetings should be 
opened with prayers. And so he shed oil on the 
troubled waters, and all tumult ceased. He knew 
how to use the auspicious moment, and to make hay 



FRANKLIN. 47 

while the sun shone. All men have fits of easy be- 
nevolence. He could take advantage of them. 

Thus he procured the cannon from Governor Clin- 
ton, of New York, for the armament of the fort be- 
low Philadelphia, against a threatened invasion of 
French and Spaniards. Franklin, Colonel Lawrence, 
Messrs . Allen and Taylor, were sent to New York to 
borrow cannon of Governor Clinton. At first the gov- 
ernor met them with a flat refusal. But after a din- 
ner, where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, 
he softened by degrees, and said he would lend six. 
After a few more bumpers he advanced ten, and at 
length he verv good-naturedly granted eighteen. 
They were fine cannon, eighteen pounders, with their 
proper carriages, and were soon transported, and 
mounted on the fort. 

In like manner, seizing the opportunity when the 
news of General Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga 
reached Paris, he at once made the treaty of alliance 
between the United States of America and France. 
It could not have been done a moment sooner. 

II. Franklin's moral powers were certainly great ; 
his moral perceptions quick, distinct, and strong. His 
moral character was high, though by no means without 
defects. He uniformly sought justice in the relation 
between nation and nation, government and people, 
man and man, and did not stop at the letter of 
treaties and statutes, or at habits and customs never 



•IS 



I i; VNM.IN. 



bo old, but vvonl back to the natural rights of man. 
II*' loved peaoe, public and privatoi and hated all 
that was sectioual and personal. He was the enemy 
ol .-ill slavery ( oalled by whatever political or eoolei I 
astioal name. ^ et his moral sense does not appear 
to have been so active as were his affections and In- 
telleot in his early days. This is not uncommon. 
The faculty of conscience whioh Sees ih<- eternal 
right, is often dormant at M i« - beginning of lii«'. 
Hence In* made M erruto,^ as he technically calls 
them, which he afterwards pointed out himself, that 
he might warn others. Mc stumbled many times in 
learning (<> walk, and, as h<' was ;i tall youth, and 
moved fast, so he fell hard. Ai. the last there i s a lit- 
tle laok hi that nioe womanly delicacy whioh you find 
in a mora] oharacter <>l the very highest elevation. 
His was the morality of a strong, experienced person, 

who had seen (he lolly of wise men, the iucmiiih 

of proud men, the baseness <>l honorable men, and 
the littleness of great men, and made libera] allow 
ances lor the failures of nil men. II (h<- final end to 
be reached were just, he did uot always inquire about 
the provisional means which led thither. He knew 
that the right line is the shortest distance between 
two points, in morals as in mathematics, l>ul yet < I i « I 
not quarrel with such as attained the point by ;• 
crooked line. Such is the habit of politicians, < I i | * I < >— 
matists, statesmen, who look on all men as a com- 



FRANKLIN. 49 

raander looks on his soldiers, and docs not ask them 
to join the church or keep their hands clean, but 
to stand to their guns and win the battle. 

Thus, in the legislature of Pennsylvania, Franklin 
found great difficulty in carrying on the necessary 
measures for military defence because a majority of 
the Assembly were Quakers, who, though friendly to 
the success of the revolution, founded contrary to 
their principles, refused to vote the supplies of war. 
So he caused them to vote appropriations to pur- 
chase bread, flour, wheat, or other grain. The Gov- 
ernor said, "I shall take the money," for " I under- 
stand very well their meaning, — other grain is gun- 
powder." He afterwards moved the purchase of a 
fire-engine, saying to a friend, "Nominate me on the 
committee, and I will nominate you ; we will buy a 
great gun, which is certainly a fire-engine ; the Qua- 
kers can have no objection to that." 

Such was the course of policy that Franklin took, 
as I think, to excess ; but yet I believe that no 
statesman of that whole century did so much to em- 
body the eternal rules of right in the customs of the 
people, and to make the constitution of the universe 
the common law of all mankind ; and I cannot be- 
stow higher praise than that on any man whose name 
I can recall. He mitigated the ferocities of war. He 
built new hospitals and improved old ones. He first 
4 



50 



i i: ANK LIN. 



Introduced thli liumtitio prlnoiplo Into tho i-nw of 
Nation ... ili.ii in iiim i oi w.u/ private property on 
1 1 1 1 • I ii.iii ho iimiioi' i<»i, •* i i i < I peaceful oomtneree 
< iuuI Inui id, unci oiiptlvo wold lorn trotitod as well em tho 
.uidici i oi tho cuptorii Qonoroui during his lifetime, 
in. cloud Ii.hhI still ".iIIhi; and dintributea bl< in- . 
to the in<-( Ii.imk . ol IJottton and their ohildron< Xruo 

il i Mid 

" 1 1 mi mil y plomuri Icntli unci pencil ntt< ndii 
\v lioiu M m-ii i in in i pun < 1 1 > i j »< . 1 1 > i in i nd 



1 in tho in :iiy i.i iv:.::. between tho Unlti il Htnti ; find Pru I i 
iIh follow in ■ u i tin twonl j i I'n 'i n i li |i i pn p u i J b , I < mil Lin 

" I I w . i i I H hi hi .ii i . I.i I n i i ii I In I w ii . ..Ml i .ii I nir pull. I In in. i 
rliiinl i.i . iiIh i < • • 1 1 1 1 1 1 % Mm ii ii nlui" in th(J OtllOr, nlnill In- nil.. I 

to 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 no 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 . : i " i • . 1 1 1 1 ( ■ i 1 1 1 1 1 1 « 1 1 1 , i . nntl to i 1 1 1 o 1 1 h 1 1 iii hi . 

mil iii. i\ iii p. iii. hii i\ currying off 1 nil thcli cfl'ool wlthoul moli I i 

inui hi i ii-i.iin ■■■ Ami iii wuiiH ii . 1 1 1 - 1 ohlldri n, i liolni ol ovory 

Ineulty, < nil n hi. 1 1 .>i i in i :n iii, :n 1 1 in i, n i.i 1 1 H 1 1. 1 in i pi, i in i 1 1 1 1, i 
mi ii mi nun ii mill iiiii:iiniiii", iiiiim nil. .I town . i lllugi . "" plm c . 

:iiul in ■■' in- 1 ,i I ill ill In i >\ I i.i i- i.i ii 1 1 1: 1 1 || .n i i . Im I In- in mil uli 

i i. m i mhI in in iii ni iniiiik nni, i. hull bo nllowod i" oontlnuo thoh 

i . | m < I i\ .• .iii|iln\ im nl; , .im I -hill mil he I imh ,1 ii I in I Inn pOl 0111, 

I in I -hill I In II In. 1 1 ■ Iinl '■' mil : hi' hill III nl ullirlU I r I I • . I I i i ', i i I , 

inn linn lli'hhi wii .- . t * - » I hy tllO mnnil Imii- nl lln- « in my. mln u Im Q 

powui hy tin- i \ <ii i ni wni i Iii \ ni:i v i i.i 1 1 1 ii n to hill. I '.ii i 1 1 nny tiling 
i in oi .H v to hi- i.ii.i-n ii iin in for tho "i- ni iuoh armed force, 

I In- HI im- | hill bfl I'M'I Ini |l| ;i i ii i.n.ihh- j > I led 

• Ami nil im Triiiui i and trading vonoli omployod In exchanging tho 

pi i M i mi; ni 1 1 1 iii- 1 1 ni 1 1 1. 1 1 ii .imi i in i i-hy rendering the nouciMirioi, 

ci hi \ i im mi-; ., imd iniiiiiiii i.i liuinnn llfo ' ! \ i" bo "iii .i imii , 

inui ii ii i ii Iinl] i" ullowod i" pm i free nnd uninoli ited, nnd 

miiini of tho contracting powori ihall grant oi lnuo any commit 



t,< iiewtk kirn for tkadL 

f m t ■:. sk that 

>, ?';.. W. rr, : ^v. 

' >. .-j\- >.■ '-.■. . ■; ■ v, . :■■.■:. ;. * ,;,*; ;; . • < • V. 

■ - .. ' 

■ 

• < ■ ; -A 

afcvtt Sum *•■; iwsw»i • :■■■/.■-'. 

........ . 

■ 



Hi > ,' 



. - ^ - .'. - . -o 



52 FRANKLIN. 

and moan. At the age of twenty-four he sought to 
negotiate a matrimonial engagement with a very 
deserving young woman. He demanded with her a 
portion of one hundred pounds, and required her 
father to mortgage his house to raise the money. 
The bargain was broken off, though the woman in 
question soon became the mother of his only son. 
He then made overtures of marriage in other quar- 
ters, but soon found that "the business of a printer 
being generally thought to be a poor one," he was 
not to expect money with a wife that was worth 
taking without. At length he married his former 
love, Miss Deborah Read, whom he had deserted 
more than six years before. I make no excuse for 
these things, and shall not call twelve a score when 
it is only a dozen. His conduct in these respects 
was mean and low. But it is Franklin who tells us 
these things against himself, and gives a conscien- 
tious list of "errata." What other American ever 
thus volunteered evidence to condemn himself? He 
diligently corrected his "errata" at a later day, and 
if the Sun of Righteousness did not shine bright in 
his morning hours, it yet made for him a long clear 
day. True, he was set free from the youthful bias 
of passion ; but of the worser vices of ambition, 
vanity, covetousness, self-esteem, envy, revenge, 
malice, I find no trace in all his writings, or in those 
of his many enemies. Though he was terribly tried 



FRANKLIN. 53 

by Dr. Arthur Lee, and by John Adams, I cannot 
remember a single revengeful or envious word that 
he ever wrote in all his numerous writings, public 
and private. He hated George HI. ; and it must be 
confessed that, if that were a failing in an American, 
it yet "leaned to virtue's side." One of the wittiest 
of men, his feathered shaft was never pointed with 
malice, not a word has come from his laughter or 
scorn at the expense of his private foes. I find in 
him no inordinate love of power, or of office, or of 
money, and not the smallest desire for show or dis 
tinction. He laughed at his own vanity. None else 
could find it to laugh at. At the period of his early 
life, men in Boston and Philadelphia, whose only 
distinction was that they were worth five or six 
thousand pounds, and were residents in provincial 
towns often or twenty thousand inhabitants, mocked 
at this printer, the son of a tallow-chandler, and 
spoke of his " mechanic rust." " Contempt pierces 
the hide of the rhinoceros," snys the proverb. 
Franklin remembered this, and thus began his last 
will and testament : "I, Benjamin Franklin, printer, 
late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States 
of America to the court of France, now President of 
the State of Pennsylvania, do make and declare this 
my last will and testament," &e.* He had no little 
resentments ; he forgave his enemies, as few States- 

* Sparks's Franklin, i. 599. 



5 A FRANKLIN. 

men and few Christians do, except in formal prayers, 
where it costs nothing and leads to nothing. He 

o © 

was publicly generous, even to his country's foes. 
Mr. John Dickinson was Franklin's bitterest enemy 
in Pennsylvania. He had written a special book 
against British grievances, the "Farmer's Letters," 
while Franklin was agent in London. Franklin re- 
printed the book, introducing it by an excellent pref- 
ace written by himself, thus overcoming evil with 
good, and doing good to those who persecuted him. 
Franklin had a strong will. All great men have ; 

© © ' 

but it was not invasive or aggressive. It cut not 
other wills asunder. His large stream, swift and 
deep, kept its own banks, and did not overslaugh 
another's land. He would go to his purpose by your 
road. He was inflexible for principles and for ends, 
but very conciliating and accommodating as to means 
and methods ; never obstinate. He could bend his 
own will, but not suffer it to be broken. Moderate, 
just, persistent, now open, now reserved, he accom- 
plished the liberation of his country. Yet he was 
often thought to be loose, irregular, not to be relied 
upon, indifferent, and false to his country. He had 
no puritanic asceticism. His morals were wider than 
Boston, wider than New England. 

III. Franklin was eminently an affectionate man. 
He had a wonderful benevolence, and was even greater 
in this than in philosophy or politics. He was full 



FRANKLIN. 00 

of loving-kindness and tender mercy. This affec- 
tionate benevolence was not merely a principle, it 
was quite as much the instinct of a kindly nature. 
You find it in his earliest writings, those written be- 
fore he Avas twenty-one years old. He was continu- 
ally doing good in the most practical way. He took 
care of his poor relations, some of whom, of course, 
repaid him not with gratitude, but with perpetual 
grumblings and complainings. Franklin, like all 
men, found that gratitude was no common virtue. 
He attempted to improve the condition of snilors, 
soldiers, prisoners of war, servants, housekeepers, 
farmers, and the rest of mankind. He had many 
friends, making them easily, and retaining them 
long. His correspondence with them is full of 
beautiful and tender love. Witness his letters to 
Priestley, Vaughan, Bishop Shipley, Hartley, Whate- 
ly, Jared Eliot, and the numerous ladies to whom 
he delighted to talk with pen or lip. Flowers of 
endearment bloom in his private letters — wild, nat- 
ural, and attractive. Even in his public documents 
wayside blossoms of affection will spring up. Lit- 
erature records the writings of few men that were 
so genial. I think no man in the world ever set on 
foot so many good works of practical benevolence. 
He sowed the seed in Philadelphia, and thence the 
plants spread over all the Northern States. In his 
private capacity he looked after the aged, the sick, 



56 FRANKLIN. 

and the poor. He tried to protect the Indians. He 
would have liberated the slaves. In his high diplo- 
matic office he sought to confine the ravages of war 

to public property, and to the actual soldiers in the 

field. Franklin was the universal Good Samaritan. 
When he first set his foot in Philadelphia he gave 
twopence worth of bread to a poor woman, and his 
last act was of the same character. 

IV. It has often been said that Franklin had no 
religion. Even the liberal Mr. Sparks thinks it is 
to be regretted that he did not bestow more atten- 
tion to the evidences of Christianity.* Mr. Sparks 
did not mean that he neglected the evidences of 
God's existence or of man's duty, or that Franklin 
required to be convinced of the need of honesty, 
truth, piety, morality, reverence, love to God, and 
the keeping of his laws. Many have called him not 
only negatively irreligious, but positively anti-reli- 
gious and atheistic. Here all rests on a definition. 

First, if religion be a compliance with the popular 
ecclesiastical ceremonies, then Franklin had little 
religion, tor in his boyhood he did not frequent the 
meeting-houses or churches much, but spent his only 
leisure day in reading and writing; in his manhood 
he had little to do with church forms. 

Second, if religion be a belief in the standard doc- 

* Sparks' a Franklin, i. 517. 



SKLIN. 



:>i 



trines of the eccle iastical theology, — the Trini 
ili'- fall, total depravity, i!jo atonement, the invinci- 
ble wrath of God, eternal hell, the damnation of men 
or of babies, the miraculous Revelation of the OM 
Te tament and the Now, the miracles of famous 
men, Jews, Gent il< , or Chri tians, —then Franklin 
had no religion at all; and it. would bean insult to 
say that he believed in the popular theology of his 
time, or of ours, for I Bud not a line from bis pen 
indicating any such belief. 

Third, if religion be fear, whining, creeping 
through the world, afraid to use the natural facul- 
ty in Hi'; natural way; if it be hatred of such as 
think differently from the mass of those who <l<> not 
think at all, but only hear and believe; if it be to 
damn men because the} ay there is no damnation; 
then Franklin had no religion :<f, all, but was pi 
tively anti-religioui and atheistic. For he stood up 
straight, like a man on his own feet, and walked 
manfully forward, daring to think and to tell what 
be thought him elf, leaving others to think al o for 
them elves, having a manly contempt for all big- 
otry, all narrov i • . yet not hating the bigot. But 
if religion be to do justly, to love mercy, and to 
walk humbly with God; if it be to love God with 
all the mind, and heart, and soul, and one's neigh- 
born one's self ; if" it, l>o to forgive injuries, to do 
good to Jill men, to protect the needy, clothe the 



58 FRANKLIN. 

naked, instruct the ignorant, feed the hungry, to 
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, to 
lift up the fallen, to break the rod of the oppressor 
and let the oppressed go free, and at heart to en- 
deavor to keep one's self unspotted from the world ; 
then what statesman, what man, what Bishop of that 
time, was his equal? Nay, bating the errors he has 
himself pointed out in his life, in what was he behind 
the very chiefest of the apostles? If such things as 
he practised make a man a Christian, then Franklin 
must stand high on the list. If they do not, then 
it is of no consequence who is called Christian, or 
Pagan, or Turk. 

In boyhood he published some opinions, which he 
afterwards thought foolish. He had the manhood to 
be sorry for it, to say so, and to recall the little tract, 
the only printed thing of his that I have not seen. . 
For a philosopher in that age he had a singularly 
devout spirit, and took pains to improve the form of 
worship, making a new translation of the Lord's 
Prayer, and publishing a modified edition of the 
Book of Common Prayer of the English Church ; 
there is a little volume of prayers still in manuscript, 
which Franklin made for his own use. He was on 
intimate terms with Priestley, one of the most able 
men of that age ; with Shipley, an English bishop ; 
with Dr. Price, a Scotch dissenter ; with Jared Eliot, 
a Connecticut Calvinist; with Ezra Stfles, another Is 



FRANKLIN . 59 

of the same stamp, who calls himself " the most un- 
worthy of all the works of God ; ' ; and with White- 
field, the great Methodist orator. \ht had no asceti- 
cism, no cant; ho did not undertake to patronize the 
Deity. He was benevolent, cheerful, honest, rever- 
ential, full of trust in God. J do not mean to say that 
I like, in a religious point of view, everything that I 
find in his writings. Now and then there is a tone 
of levity which sounds ill. I do not think he meant 
it ill. Franklin has a bad reputation among minis- 
ters and in church* Vou see why. .Because he 

had natural religion: because he . '! that, 

and trusted God more than he feared man. If he 
had done as Mr. Polk did, — sent for a minister on 
his death-bed, and declared that all his righteous! 

as filthy rags ; that he had not any faith in hu- 
man nature, but through means of miracles and 
atonement, — then Franklin's praise would have been 
sounded from one end of the land to the other. And 
if he had said, w Brethren, slavery is all light : \. 
is the Old and New Testament for it," the whole 
church of America, and its ministers from the Pe- 
nobscot to the Sacramento, from the Lake of the 
Woods clear down to Lake Nicaragua, would have 
been praising him to this day. Instead of tb< 
things, Franklin said, " If I should escape shipwreck, 
I should not build a church, but a liirht-house." 
As it is, Franklin and Washington must be content 



60 FRANKLIN. 

to have possessed the greatest of human virtues in 
the heroic degree, and to endure a bad name from 
the American clergy. Franklin had the substance 
of religion, such as Jesus said should be rewarded in 
the kingdom of heaven with a "Well done, £ood 
and faithful servant," an "Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto 
me." * 

Great man as he was, he saw not all the evils of 
his own time. He owned a slave in 1758, named 
"Billy," who ran away from him in England, but 
was soon found under the protection of a lady, who 
was proud of making him a Christian, and contribut- 
ing to his education and improvement. She had sent 
him to school. He was taught to read and write, to 
play the violin and French horn. Franklin says, 
T Whether she will be willing to part with him, or 
can persuade Billy to part with her, I know not." 
Yet in 1760 he became one of the trustees of Rev. 
Dr. Bray's admirable association for the instruction 
of negroes. | 

But it must be considered that slavery, in 1758, 
was a very different thing from what it is in 1859. It 
was by no means the cruel and malignant thing that it 
now is. In the Constitutional Convention he consent- 

* As to his religious opinions, see Sparks's Franklin, i. 514 ; 
x. 422-425. 

t Sparks's Franklin, vii. pp. 201, 202. 



FRANKLIN. 61 

ed to the continuance of slavery in the Union. I do 
not find that he publicly opposed the African slave- 
trade. At that time he was the greatest man on the 
Continent of America, possessing and enjoying great 
respect, great popularity and influence throughout the 
country. Had he said, " There must be no slavery in ' 
the United States. It is unprofitable ; it conflicts with 
our interests, social, educational, commercial, moral. 
It is unphilosophical, at variance with the first prin- 
ciples set forth in our Declaration of Independence. 
It is in conflict with the very objects of the Constitu- 
tion, and incompatible with the political existence 
of a republic. Moreover, it is wicked, utterly at 
war with the eternal law which God has written in 
the constitution of man and of matter. It must, by all 
means, be put down:" — had he said these things, 
what would have happened? Washington would 
have been at his side, and Madison and Sherman, 
with the States of New England and of New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. On the 
other hand, Virginia and North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina and Georgia, might have gone and been annexed 
to England or Spain. But, instead of four millions 
of negro slaves, and instead of slave ships fitting out 
in New York and Baltimore, and the Federal Gov- 
ernment at Boston playing genteel comedy at the 
slave-trader's trial, what a spectacle of domestic gov- 
ernment should we have had ! What national pros- 



62 



I !: AN K I.I N . 



pority ! But Franklin spoke n<> such word. I>i<l Imi 
not think? I > i < I lie fear? Judge ye who can. To 
me, his silence there is the great fault of his life. 
Ii wMs the hour of the Nation's trial, liven he could 
noi stand Hie rack. No man is so good .'is .-ill men. 
No experience is so wise as time. 

Yd Franklin had his little inconsistencies. In his 
Poor Richard's Almanac he said, "Lyiug rides on 
debt's back," and " Pay as you go." But it must be 
told, " Benjamin Franklin, printer," ran in <l<l>f at the 
grocer's, and the debt accumulated from year to year. 

It was two pounds in I7.'>l ; nine pounds in L736 j 

and twenty-six pounds in I7. r >0. Some of the items 
are curious. "A fan for Debby," his wife, two shil- 
lings; a beaver hat" for himself, two pounds; dress- 
ing an ol<l hat for his son, two shillings, lie talked 
against luxury; but in L758 he sent home sixteen 
yards of floweret tissue, which cost nine guineas, or 
about fifty dollars, for .*i dress for bis wife. And 
Tor his daughter he sends a pair of buckles, which 
co i three guineas. A lso he purchased ji " pair of silk 
blankets, very fine," taken by ;i privateer, and all o 
"a fine jug for beer." Said lie, "I fell in love with it 
at first sight, for 1 thought it looked like a fat, jolly 
dame, clean and tidy, dressed in a neat blue and 
white calico gown, good-natured and lovely ; :ni<l it 
put me in mind of somebody."* But In; was 



* 8pai i. i'i Franklin, vii. i*M, 



FRANKLIN. 63 

wealthy tbon, and the country prosperous. In differ- 
ent times he had sterner practices.* 

Nd man ever rendered so great services to Ameri- 
can education. They began forty years before the 
Revolution, and are not ended yet. His newspapers 
and pamphlets were of immense value to the cause 
of humanity; for he was able, wise, just, and be- 
nevolent. At twenty years of age, he wrote as well 
as Addison or Goldsmith. His English is fresh, idio- 
matic, vigorous, and strong, like the language of Dean 
Swift. His style is direct and often beautiful a 
fringed gentian in the meadows of September. He 
had great skill in making an abstract style popular. 
He reduced many things to a common denominator, 
that is to say, to their lowest terms, and so he made 
them easy for all to handle and comprehend, having 
in this respect the rare excellence of Socrates and 
Bacon. Believing sincerity to be the last part of 
eloquence, he has not left a line of sophistry in his 
ten volumes. For twenty-five year- he published, 
annually, ten thousand copies of "Poor Richard's 
Almanac," full of thrifty maxims and virtuous coun- 
sel. It was one of the most valuable allies of the 
Nation. For it made popular throughout the Nation 
that thrift which enabled Congress to keep the Revo- 
lutionary army together for nearly seven years. I 

* See the admirable letter to Sarah, 3d June, 1774, Sparks's 
Franklin, viii. 373. 



64 FRANKLIN. 

have often thought that the battles of the Revolution 
could not have been fought between 1775 and 1783 
had not the Almanac been published from 1730 to 
1755. It was the People's classic volume, hanging 
in the kitchens from the Penobscot to the Alleghany 
Mountains, and from Buffalo Creek to the mouth of 
the Savannah River. It was the Bible of the shop 
and of the barn. Poor Richard became the American 
saint, especially the saint of New England, — a saint 
devoted to the almighty dollar. 

His scientific labors were for the Human Race. Yet 
science was only an incident in his life, which was 
devoted intensely to practical studies. In his early 
days he had no training in school or college, but he 
had a nature that was more college than the university 
that could not let him in. He had no acquaintance 
with the higher mathematics, nor any companionship 
with learned men until his great discoveries were all 
made. The magnificent works of Newton, Leibnitz, 
Haller, Blumenbach, Priestley, Cuvier, Von Hum- 
boldt, fill me with less surprise than the grand gener- 
alizations of Franklin, made with no help from society 
or from any intellectual atmosphere about him, and 
in the midst of laborious duties. He pursued sci- 
ence under the greatest of difficulties, and how mag- 
nificent were the prizes that he won ! 

Franklin's diplomatic labors in England before the 



FRANKLIN. 65 

Revolution, and during its period at Paris, were of 
immense value. Whenever the Revolutionary Pic- 
ture shall be composed, Franklin and Samuel Adams 
will stand as the central figures. He is the great 
man of the epoch. He, of all other men, made the 
American cause popular in England, and so secured 
troops of friends in the heart of the enemy's camp, 
lie, at an early day, obtained the efficient aid of 
France, supplies of money and military stores ; and 
in 1778 he induced Louis XVI. to acknowledge the 
Independence of the United States of America. It 
seems to me he was the only American that could 
have accomplished that work ; and without the aid 
of France, it now seems that tlie Revolution would 
have failed, and would have been called a "Rebel- 
lion;" Hancock and the Adamses had been "trai- 
tors," and the rhetoricans would have made political 
capital by discoursing on the cowardice, the treach- 
ery, and the wickedness of that infamous rebel, Gen- 
eral George Washington ! 

But the services by which he is best known were 
doubtless rendered in his more common and ordinary 
life ; in his powers of moulding matter into machines, 
of organizing men into companies and institutions. 
It is amazing how much he accomplished in that way. 
Nothing was too small for him; nothing too large. 
He could teach a sea-cook to put a two-pound shot 
into his kettle of hard peas so that the roll of the 
5 



66 FRANKLIN. 

ship should grind them to powder; and he could or- 
ganize a state, a nation, or a Household of nations. 
He was a Universal Yankee, for he filled all the space 
between the discoveries of a scientific or political 
truth mid the operations of a mechanic who files a 
screw iu a gun-lock. 

Jl* it be the function of a great man t<> help the 
little ones, to help them to help themselves, who ever 
did it more or better? We need not be sorry to see 
a great man busy with the discovery of little things, 
for the little tilings form the welfare of a Nation, while 
they educate the inventor to yet larger power. 

Franklin had his enemies, many, bitter, powerful, 
and unrelenting. From 1757 to 1783, the British 
Government hated him, whom they feared more than 
jiny man. George 111. warned his Ministers against 
the w crafty American, who is more than a match for 
you all." But his worst iocs were in Pennsylvania 
and Massachusetts; and the traditional hatred in both 
these States has come down to this generation. But 
"let the dead bury their dead." 

The American Government was never remarkable 
for gratitude, until the Mexican war gave us such a 
crop of self-denying heroes, — 

" Who in the public breach devoted stood, 

And for their country's cause were prodigal of* blood." 

Franklin, after he had been abroad for a long time, 



- 

. 

It has not 

I 

H 

in all . 

E . 

DO 

| 

He 

■ 
] 
... Phil • . to i 

.... ( ). '.'. G 

D in 
' . itn j 

tot 
Philadelphi 

1 1 y counsel, a;. I I 



68 FRANKLIN. 

fore refused to contribute. I happened soon after to 
attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I 
perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and 
I silently resolved that he should get nothing from 
me. I had in my pocket a handful ot copper money, 
three or four silver dollars, and live pistoles in gold. 
As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to 
give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory 
made me ashamed of that, and determined me to 
give the silver. And he finished so admirably that 
I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, 
gold and all." 

Most economic of men in all expenditures of power, 
he could keep his pot boiling continuously, and not 
let it boil over. To warm his house he did not set 
one chimney on tire. He said he should like to re- 
turn to this earth a century after his death, to see 
how the world went on. It is now sixty-seven years 
since his death. What if he could have come back 
on the day of the great procession in September, 
1856, when his statue was inaugurated ! He would 
find the education of the lightning carried farther 
than lie had dreamed. He taught it good manners; 
to keep a little iron road, and not to run against the 
farmers' barns or the village steeple. He would find 
that it had been taught to write and print, and to run 
errands over lands and under seas. What new pow- 
ers have come into play since his time ! What a 



FRANKLIN. 69 

change he would find in America ! The thirteen 
States grown to thirty-one ; and, alas, another asking 
to come in, and America saying that she shall come in 
only with fetters on her hands, a yoke on her neck, 
and the shackles of slavery in her soul ; the three 
millions of people to thirty millions ; the Boston of 
ten thousand inhabitants become one of a hundred 
and seventy-seven thousand eight hundred and forty, 
the thirty thousand of Philadelphia increased to five 
hundred and sixty-five thousand five hundred and 
twenty-nine. But, alas, he would find the four hun- 
dred thousand slaves of the United States now num- 
bering more than four million ; and the doctrines 
that he put into the mouth of an Algerine to ridicule 
the idea of slavery, now adopted as the principles of 
fifteen States, and the rules of conduct of our Federal 
Government. What if he had come back to his own 
Boston when she made her last rendition of a fugitive 
slave ! Were he to return to the United States he 
would find nineteen towns and ninety-eight counties \ 
bearing his own name, to honor his life and memory. 
But if he staid a little while, and bore the same re- 
lation to the nineteenth century as formerly to the 
eighteenth, what would become of his honors? 

His character was singularly simple and healthy. 
He used the homage of France, and of all Europe, 
and utilized his praises that w r ere in the lips of men, 
so as to serve the great purposes of his country. 



70 EBANKLIN, 

His life shows the neoessity of time to make a great 
character, a great reputation, or a great estate. You 
want a long summer to produce a great crop. His 
old age was beautiful. Honored and admired as no 
other man, he went to the house be had built a quar- 
ter of a century before, with his friends and descend- 
ants around him. He continued in public office mi 
within six months of his death, and in the public ser- 
vice till within twenty-four days of it. 

The warning ho gives is plain — to beware of ex- 
cess in early youth, of trilling with the most delicate 
sensibilities of woman, and of ever neglecting (lie 
most sacred duties of domestic lite. Few men un- 
derstood the art of life so well as he. He took great 
pains to eorreet his faults. All remember the day- 
book, in which he kept an account of his virtues, 
arranging them under thirteen heads, until he had 
put under his feet those lusts that war against the 
soul. The guidance he gives is also plain. He 
shows the power of industry, by which he obtained 
a large estate of money, and still more a manly en- 
dowment of learning. At twenty-one he has had 
two years schooling, and no more ; at forty he is 
master of English, Latin, French, Italian, Span- 
ish, and German ; at sixty, the greatest Universities 
in the world, and whole Nations, agree in calling him 
the greatest philosopher then living, lie was not 



FRANKLIN. 71 

ashamed of the humblest industry whereby he made 
his fortune, his reputation, and his character. 

He shows not less the power of justice and be- 
nevolence. It is his moral and affectional character 
that has taken the strongest hold on America and 
the world. When he departed this life, there were 
of his fellow-citizens great men in public office 
abroad ; men of mighty talents : Jefferson at the 
Court of France, Jay at the Court of England, and 
kindred spirits in similar high places ; but if he 
should cast his eye on our diplomatic servants abroad 
now, he would not see a single man eminent for sci- 
ence, literature, benevolence, patriotism ; only for 
politics and Satanic Democracy, not the Celestial De- 
mocracy. When he left the world Washington was 
President, and should he come back it would be 
Pierce or Buchanan. If he mi^ht have beheld the 
great procession in Boston, inaugurating the statue 
to his honor, how much would his heart have re- 
joiced at the stalwart and able-bodied men in the 
fire companies, — originated through his thoughts ; 
at the men whose business it is to beat the anvil, 
and at all manner of workmen that his eye would 
have looked upon ; and as the Franklin-medal schol- 
ars passed, — when he saw whole families, six sons 
of a single mother, all adorned with his medal, — 
how proud he would have been ! One thing would 
have pained him. He would have said to the Fathers 



72 FRANKLIN. 

of Boston, "Arc there no colored people in your 
town?" "Several thousands," would have been the 
answer. "Have none of them won Ihe medal?" 
And the City Government would have hung its 
head with shame, and said, " We never think of 
giving medals to those who need them most." As 
he ran his eye along', he would have seen but twr 
swarthy faces in the whole length of the procession', 
and presently he would have seen the officers of the 
Mercantile Library Association expel them from its 
ranks, and Boston would not have answered, and 
said, Shame ! but Franklin would have cried, Shame ! 
What a life it was ! Begun with hawking ballads 
in the streets of a little colonial town, continued by 
organizing education, benevolence, industry ; by con- 
quering the thunders of the sky, making the lightning 
the servant of mankind ; by establishing Indepen- 
dence ; by mitigating the ferocity of war, and brought 
down to its very last day by his manliest effort, an 
attempt to break the last chain from the feeblest of 
all oppressed men. What a life ! What a charac- 
ter ! Well said a French poet, — 

"Legislator of one world! Benefactor of two! 
All mankind owes to you a deut of gratitude." 



WASHINGTON. 



(73) 



WASHINGTON". 



In the beginning of the eighteenth century, in the 
Colony of Virginia, Westmoreland County, between the 
Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, at a spot called 
Bridge's Creek, there was living an obscure farmer, 
named Augustine Washington. He was born in 
1694, and came of a short-lived family, which had 
emigrated to America in the year 1657. He inher- 
ited but little, and by his own diligence and thrift 
acquired a considerable property, which chiefly con- 
sisted of wild land, negro slaves, and cattle. In the 
rude husbandry of the time and place, he raised 
corn, horned beasts, swine, and tobacco. Augustine 
Washington was first married at the age of twenty- 
one, to Jane Butler, who became tha mother of four 
children. But she died, 4th November, 1728, only 
two of her children, her sons Lawrence and Augustine, 
surviving. Fifteen months later, 6th March, 1730, 
the elder Augustine, for a second wife, married Mary 
Ball, said to be beautiful, and the belle of the neigh- 

(75) 



76 WASHINGTON. 

boring country. She became the mother of six chil- 
dren. 

George Washington was the eldest, the fifth child 
of his father, and the first of his mother. He was 
born on Saturday, February 22, 1732, a day famous 
in the political annals of America. At his birth, his 
father was thirty-eight years of age ; his mother twen- 
ty-eight. He first saw the light in a rude farm-house, 
steep-roofed, with low eaves, one story high, having 
four rooms on the ground floor, and others in the 
attic. There were huge chimneys at each end, which 
were built up outside the house. It was old and 
rickety then ; not a trace now remains ; only a plain 
stone marks the spot as " The Birthplace of Wash- 
ington. " 

George Washington was descended from the com- 
mon class of Virginia farmers. No ruler of the 
Anglo-Saxon stock has obtained so great a reputa- 
tion for the higher qualities of human virtue. For 
more than one thousand years no statesman or sol- 
dier has left a name so much to be coveted. None 
ever became so dear to the thoughtful of mankind. 
In the long line of generals, kings, and emperors, 
from the first monarch to the last president or pope, 
none ranks so high for the prime excellence of heroic 
virtue. His name is a watchword of liberty. His 
example and character are held up as the model for 
all men in authority. So much is he esteemed at 



WASHINGTON. 77 

home, that the most selfish and deceitful of politi- 
cians use his name as the stalking-horse behind which 
they creep when they seek to deceive and K exploiter " 
the People. He is one of the great authorities in 
American Politics ; all parties appealing to him, 
sometimes for good, most commonly for evil. 

This is the ground-plan of Washington's life, — the 
map of facts and dates, the headlands only being 
sketched in. 

Born, on Saturday morning, February 22, 1732, he 
was baptized on April 3d, of the same year, in the 
authorized Episcopal Church of the Parish. His 
father soon after removed to Stafford County, on the. 
left bank of the Rappahannock, opposite to the town 
of Fredericton. There George attended a poor pri- 
vate school, — there was no other, — kept by the 
parish Sexton, who only taught Reading, Writing, 
and Arithmetic. 

At sixteen years of age, in 1748, Washington be- 
came a public surveyor of land, and found it a 
profitable business, earning a pistole each day (about 
three -j 6 ^- dollars), and sometimes more than that. 
He continued in this work for about three years, but 
had always a turn for military affairs. 

There were continual troubles with the French, 
who were advancing their frontier outposts from their 
settlements in the Mississippi Valley towards the 



78 WASHINGTON. 

Western Virginia borders. Also the American In- 
dians, who dwelt and wandered through the valley 
of the Ohio River, and along the great lakes, took 
part in the expeditions and forages thence arising. 
Hence it became necessary to enroll a Service of Mi- 
litia, which might, from time to time, be called to ac- 
tive duty. In this Militia, Washington, at the age 
of nineteen, in 1751, was commissioned by the Gov- 
ernor of Virginia as Adjutant General, with the rank 
of Major — an office about equal to that of a militia 
captain in New England. In 1752, he went to the 
West Indies with his consumptive brother Lawrence, 
rather a distinguished person in the eastern parts of 
Virginia, who died in 1752, leaving a large estate for 
George to settle, of which a considerable portion 
fell to him. In this way he became possessed of the 
handsome property of Mount Vernon, which the 
brother had named for the gallant British Admiral 
Vernon, under whom he had served in early life. 
Washington continued to hold his commission in the 
Virginia Army until the peace in 1758, in which year, 
about the end of December, he returned to private 
life as a farmer at Mount Vernon. 

On the 6th clay of January, 1759, he married 
Mrs. Martha Custis, the widow of John Parker Cus- 
tis, a woman distinguished for beauty, accomplish- 
ments, and riches. He thus added about one hundred 
thousand dollars to his estate, which was already 



WASHINGTON. 71) 

considerable. By her previous marriage she had 
a son of six, and a daughter of four years of age. 
From 1759 to 1775 he attended to the details of a 
country gentleman's life in Virginia, improving his 
land and adding to his property. He managed his 
large estate with much skill for the time and place. 
He became a member of the House of Burgesses 
(the Legislature of the Colony of Virginia) , and in 
1774 he was elected a delegate to represent Virginia 
in the first General Congress of all the British Prov- 
inces and Colonies. This Congress was called and 
assembled through the influence of Dr. Franklin and 
Samuel Adams. They had devised means, and de- 
signed the objects of the Assembly, and had laid out 
the work for it to do. 

On the 15th June, 1775, he was appointed "Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the American Forces." No longer 
men called him Colonel or Esquire. He laid down 
that high Military office on the 23d December, 1783, 
and retired to private life at Mount Vernon. In 1787 
he was appointed a member of the Federal Conven- 
tion, which formed The Constitution of the United 
States of America, and, when that Convention was 
organized, General Washington was elected, by a 
unanimous vote, to preside over its deliberations. 

He was President of the United States from 1789 
to 1797. 

He retired to private life again in March, 1797 ; but, 



80 WASHINGTON. 

on the following January, was elected "Commander-in- 
Chief of the Armies " then about to be called into ser- 
vice on account of the troubles threatening w r ith the 
Government of France. 

He died at Mount Vernon on Saturday, 14th Decem- 
ber, 1799, aged sixty-seven years, nine months, and 
twenty-two days, leaving an estate of about half a 
million of dollars, and no child. He was in the mili- 
tary service of Virginia about seven years, and of the 
United States of America a little more than ei^ht 
years. He was President of the United States eight 
years. He was forty years a husband. 

For convenience, divide his life into six periods. 

I. His boyhood and youth, — his school time from 
birth to his nineteenth year, 1732-1751. 

II. His service in the French and Indian war, 
from his nineteenth to his twenty-seventh year, 
1751-1759. 

III. His life as a citizen of Virginia, farmer, 
member of Assembly, member of the Central Con- 
gress, from his twenty-seventh to his forty-third 
year, 1759-1775. . 

IV. His service in the Revolutionary War, from 
his forty-third to his fifty-first year, 1775-1783. 

V. His service as President, from his fifty-seventh 
to his sixty-fifth year, 1789-1797. 

VI. The close of all, 1799. 



WASHINGTON. 81 

I. Ill his boyhood and youth, his opportunities for 
education were exceedingly poor ; not equal to those 
afforded by the public District free schools at that 
period maintained in every New England village. 
During the life of his father, while he lived in Staf- 
ford County, and until he was eleven or twelve years 
old, he had the help of Mr. Hobby, a tenant of one 
of his father's houses, and also schoolmaster and Par- 
ish sexton. With him, the lad was taught only read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic. He never studied 
grammar. That seems to have been one of the lost 
arts, neglected both in conversation and in writing ; 
and even the art of spelling was in a sad condition. 
His father died soon after George was eleven years 
old. He then lived, for a time, with his brother 
Augustine, at Bridge's Creek, and attended the f? Su- 
perior School " of Mr. Williams, where he seems to 
have learned the rudiments of geometry. 

Some of his early manuscript books are still pre- 
served. One has the autograph, " George Washing- 
ton, aged thirteen." These writing-books are hand- 
some monuments of neatness and boyish diligence. 
" The child is father to the man." In one of these he 
copied " Forms of Writing," copies of mercantile and 
legal papers, notes of hand, wills, leases, deeds, and 
the like. In the same book he also shut up for safe 
keeping some specimens of" poetry," or what passed 
for such, — hard-trotting verses, adorned with the 

6 



82 WASHINGTON. 

jingling bells of rhyme. He copied, likewise, 
" Rules for Behavior in Company and in Conversa- 
tion," which have rather a cold, conventional, and 
worldly air, showing the greatest deference to men 
of superior social rank, and implying, in general, 
that more respect should be paid to the condition 
than to the real quality of men. These " Rules" seem 
to have had much influence upon his manly life. His 
actual manners reflected them. 

His fondness for the military profession began 
early, and was stimulated by the condition of the 
country, though the tastes of the leading men of Vir- 
ginia could never be made soldierly. Virginia was 
always an unmilitary State. His elder brother, 
Major Lawrence Washington, a powerful man in 
those parts, was of a soldierly turn. So at fourteen, 
George procured a midshipman's warrant, and left 
school. It is said his luggage was put on board the 
ship. But at the last moment his mother refused her 
consent : he must not be a British naval officer. 
On how small a hinge turns the destiny of how great 
a man ! He lived with his brother Lawrence for 
about two years more, and studied geometry and 
trigonometry enough to become a practical surveyor 
of land. His early Field-Books, while a learner, are 
said to be models of neat accuracy. They contain 
plottings of the fields about his home or school- 
house. 



WASHINGTON. 83 

Iii the autumn of 1747, before he was quite six- 
teen, he left school, yet residing with his brother 
Lawreuee at Mount Vernon, and continued his hum- 
ble mathematieal studies. lie was a public laud 
surveyor at the age of seventeen. His manuscript 
Book of Surveys begins the 22d January, 1749, and is 
still extant. When he was about sixteen,* it seems 
he fancied himself in love with a maiden whose name 
has perished, but who gave his boyish heart no little 
puerile unhappiness. He complains that she '' is 
pitiless of my griefs and woes." The eoursc of his 
true love not running smooth, but being crossed as 
usual, like other bashful young men he sought to 
improve its How by stringing sueh rhymes as could 
be had or made, and he talks of his 

" Poor, restless heart, 
Wounded by Cupid's dart." 

But he survived this affliction, and only his melan- 
choly verses remain to tell the tale. He calls his 
flame his " Lowland Beauty." It is said she was a 
Miss Grimes, subsequently wife of Mr. Lee, and the 
mother of General Henry Lee, who was a favorite 
with Washington. A little later another maiden, 
Miss Carey, created mischief in his heart, to which 
some drafts of letters, still to be read in his journal, 

* Irving, who is often inaceurate, says at " fifteen." The more 
careful Sparks says " seventeen." Compare Irving, i. 34, with 
Sparks, i. 78. 



84 WASHINGTON. 

bear fruitful witness. He complains that her pres- 
ence " revives my former passion for your f Lowland 
Beauty.' Were I to live more retired from young 
women, I might, in some measure, alleviate my sor- 
rows by burying that chaste and troublesome passion 
in the grave of oblivion." It seems he never told 
his love, but absence, business, fox-hunting at length 
cured him, and maidens and whining verses forever 
disappeared from his journal, which, instead, is filled 
up with details of surveying. 

His early life afforded slender means for acquiring 
knowledge of books, literature, science, or any en- 
larged ideas. Yet it gave him a good opportunity 
for learning practical details of American life, and 
for the development of character. He was much in 
the fields, fond of athletic sports, riding, hunting, 
leaping, fencing, and the like. His mother was a 
woman of rather a severe and hard character, with a 
high temper and a spirit of command, which her son 
inherited. She was a good manager, a practical 
housekeeper, prudent and thrifty, an exact disciplina- 
rian, reserved and formal in her manners. When 
Lafayette visited her in 1777, he found the thrifty 
farmer's widow at work in her garden, with an old 
sun-bonnet on her head ; and she had the good sense 
not to change her working dress when she came to 
receive the courtly friend of American Liberty. 8he 
was a woman of few books, — perhaps of only one, — 



WASHINGTON. 85 

" Sir Matthew Hide's Contemplations, Divine and 
Moral," which her son reverently kept till his own 
death. She plainly had a great influence upon Wash- 
ington. 

He continued in his business of land surveying 
for about three years, till he was nineteen years old, 
mid thus passed his youth. He was not brought up 
on Books, but on the Breast of things. Great duties 
came on him early. He learned self-command and 
self-reliance. His education was not costly but pre- 
cious. It is doubtful whether any King in all Chris- 
tendom, in the eighteenth century, had so good a 
preparation for the great art to rule a State as this 
farmer's son picked up in the rough life on the fron- 
tier of civilization in Virginia. 

II. His early military life began at the age of 
nineteen (1751), and lasted about seven years, with 
various interruptions, till 1758. He was occupied in 
raising and drilling the soldiers, and commanding 
them in their rude warfare against the Indians and 
the French. He was sent across the Alleghauies to 
the Ohio River on business of great importance. 
But as the British Government treated the officers 
of the local militia with contempt, upon the formal 
declaration of the war he resigned his post, and be- 
came a volunteer in General Braddock's arm)' in 
1754. In this he held the rank of Colonel, and was 



86 WASHINGTON. 

stationed on the frontier of Maryland. Here, for the 
first time, he saw regular soldiers, well disciplined 
and accustomed to a soldier's life. His previous ex- 
posure had made him familiar with the wild coun- 
try in Western Virginia and in Pennsylvania, and also 
with the Indian mode of fio'htins;. The " frontier 
Colonel " of twenty-three had a military knowledge 
which, in this expedition, was worth more than all 
Braddock had gathered from the splendid strategic 
parades of England and Holland. Had Washington's 
counsel been followed, the expedition would have 
been successful. After Braddock's disastrous defeat, 
Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 
Forces of Virginia, with the rank of Colonel, and held 
the office till the return of peace in 1758. His posi- 
tion was singularly difficult. First, because the Eng- 
lish Governor Dinwiddie, his chief, was ignorant and 
ostentatious, at once capricious and obstinate, domi- 
neering, now commanding and then countermanding, 
with no reason in either case. He both despised and 
hated the American Colonies, and, with gross inso- 
lence, trampled on the young men of eminent talents. 
He vexed, thwarted, and outraged Washington con- 
tinually. Second, the Virginia Legislature, who 
voted the money and the men, was by no means 
high-minded, but parsimonious and short-sighted, 
and had besides a weak and inefficient military sys- 
tem. Third, the Virginians did not make either 



WASHINGTON. 87 

good soldiers or good officers. It was difficult to 
obtain recruits for the rank and file of his little 
army. When found, they were idle, wasteful, impa- 
tient of discipline, and continually deserting, which 
the civil authorities encouraged them to do. Many 
of the officers were ignorant, idle, jealous, disobe- 
dient, and tyrannical. Washington must create both 
the body and the soul of his army, and even the legis- 
lative disposition to support it. It is hard to con- 
ceive a more trying position. He stood in a cow- 
ardly army, and had on one side an imbecile admin- 
istration, an obstinate executive, and a miserly 
legislature ; on the other, a people parsimonious, and 
seemingly indifferent to their own welfare. While 
the Indians were ravaging the border, and driving 
whole towns of people away from their homes, he 
was obliged to impress soldiers, and to seize Prov- 
inces by force. He dared not venture to part with 
any of his white men for any distance, says the Gov- 
ernor, as he must have a watchful eye on the negro 
slaves. His army was always ill fed and ill clad. 
He complains continually of a perpetual lack of pro- 
visions, clothing, and even shoes. " Scarcely a man 
has shoes or stockings, or a hat." He finds fault with 
his " whooping, hallooing gentlemen-soldiers." Din- 
widdie treated him ill, because he complained, and 
sometimes answered him with capricious cruelty. 
Amid ail these difficulties, the youth of twenty-two 



88 WASHINGTON. 

to twenty-six went on with coolness, bravery, and 
moderation, and rarely overstepped his duty. Some- 
times his discipline was a little severe. If a soldier 
sw T ore, he had twenty-five lashes ; five hundred for 
quarrelling and fighting ; one hundred for drunk- 
enness. Desertion was punished with death. His 
authority was great. The selfishness and cowardice 
of the people were disgusting. From natural dis- 
position he loved the exercise of power. He com- 
plains, "No order is obeyed but such as a party of 
soldiers, or my own drawn sword, enforces. With- 
out this, not a single horse, for the most earnest 
occasion, can be had. To such a pitch was the inso- 
lence of the people carried by having every point 
conceded to them." But he was singularly careful 
to defer to the civil authority when possible. If the 
right was doubtful, the conscientious young soldier 
left it to be exercised by the magistrate, not by the 
military arm. This is to be noted, because it is so rare 
for military men to abstain from tyranny, especially 
for young soldiers. And, in fact, it is hard for such, 
since, naturally, they incline to quick methods and 
severe measures. 

His seven years' apprenticeship in that terrible war, 
from 1751 to 1758, was an admirable discipline to fit 
him for greater trials, in a wider and more conspicu- 
ous field. The French War was the school for the 
American Revolution. Here this great scholar took 



WASHINGTON. 89 

his first lessons. He learned caution, reserve, mod- 
eration, and that steady perseverance which so marked 
his later life. 

In 1756, in the winter, he was sent to Philadel- 
phia, New York, and Boston on military business. 
Tradition reports that he fell in love with another 
young lady at New York, but the affair blew over, 
and came to nought. 

III. From the last week in December, 1758, till 
the 15th June, 1775, Washington had no direct part 
in military affairs. On January 6, 1759, he married 
the rich and handsome widow of Mr. Custis, and 
three months after went to live on his large farm at 
Mount Vernon, where he continued mainly busy with 
the common affairs of a Virginia gentleman of large 
estate. He attended to his farming, raising crops 
there, and disposing of them in London. He bought 
and sold land, of which he owned large tracts, chiefly 
in the unsettled parts of the Province. He visited the 
wealthy people of Virginia a good deal ; was often 
at Williamsburg, the capital of the Colony, a town of 
about fifteen hundred or two thousand inhabitants. 
He received much company at his own house. Most 
of the distinguished men of Virginia and Maryland, 
including the royal Governor, were there in these 
fifteen or sixteen years. His wife's relations he sel- 
dom saw more than once a year, they lived so far 
away. 



90 WASHINGTON. 

We usually conceive of Washington as a public 
man, sternly occupied with most important concerns ; 
but from 1759 to 1774 he was mainly free from all 
great public duties or cares. He could employ his 
time as he liked. His diary, kept on the blank 
leaves of an almanac, and still preserved, shows how 
almost every day was spent. • From this and his 
letters, then not very numerous, we see how he 
passed that period. He was active in parish affairs, 
— a vestryman in two churches ; one at Pohick, 
seven miles off, the other at Alexandria, ten miles off. 
He attended at one of them every Sunday, when the 
weather and the Virginia roads permitted. He kept 
a four-horse coach, with a driver, postilion, and foot- 
man, — all negro slaves, all in Washington livery, — 
and lived after the old style of Virginia elegance, in 
a great, but rather uncomfortable house, surrounded 
by negro slaves. 

At first, his dress was plain and cheap. Thus, in 
October, 1747, he records in his diary that he deliv- 
ered to the washerwoman " two shirts, the one marked 
G. W.j the other not marked; one pair of hose and 
one band, to be washed against the November courts 
in Frederic County." In his backwoods fighting, he 
was often dressed in the Indian style, as were also 
many of his soldiers. He found it most convenient. 
But he afterwards acquired a taste for fine dress from 
his intercourse with British officers. So, in 1756, 



WASHINGTON. 91 

he orders from England " two complete livery suits 
for servants (that is, for his slaves), with a Spanish 
cloak, the trimmings and faces of scarlet, and a scarlet 
waistcoat, and two silver-laced hats ; one set of horse 
furniture, with livery lace, with the Washington coat 
on the housings ; three gold and scarlet sword knots ; 
three silver and blue of the same ; one fashionable 
gold-laced hat." The next year, his book records an 
order on Mr. Richard Washington, a London trader, 
for " one piece of French cambric ; two pair of tine 
worked ruffles, at twenty shillings a pair; half a doz- 
en pair of thread hose, at five shillings. If worked 
ruffles should be out of fashion, send such as are not 
worked; as much of the best superfine blue cotton 
velvet as will make a coat, waistcoat, and breeches 
for a tall man, with tine silk buttons to suit it, and 
all other necessary trimmings and linings, together 
with gaiters for the breeches ; six pair of the very 
neatest shoes ; six pair of gloves, three pairs of which 
to be proper for riding, and to have slit tops, the 
whole larger than the middle size." 

At a later day, articles of woman's attire appear in 
the orders. Thus, in 1759, after marriage, we find 
"a salmon-colored Talby of the enclosed pattern, 
with satin flounces, to be made in a sack and coat; 
one cap, handkerchief and tucker, and ruffles to be 
made of Brussels lace or Point, to cost twenty 
pounds " (one hundred dollars) . Then follow " tine 



92 WASHINGTON. 

flounced lawn aprons ; women's white silk hose, and 
two pair of satin shoes, one black one white, of the 
smallest sizes ; a fashionable Hatt or Bonnet ; kid 
gloves, kid mitts, knots, breast knots, woven silk 
lacings (for stays) . Red minikin pins and hair pins ; 
perfumed powder ; Scotch snuff and Strasbourg 
snuff; Phillippe shoe-buckles," &c, &c* These 
little good-for-nothing straws show that for a while 
the great Washington's stream turned off from its 
straight course, and spread out into broad shallows, 
trilling with its flowery shores. He was a rich tann- 
er, a country gentleman, raising tobacco, and send- 
ing it to England for sale ; mana^ino- his own affairs 
with diligence and shrewdness ; keeping his own ac- 
counts with great neatness of detail, f His family 
seems to have been rather foud of dress, with a great 
desire to be "fashionable," and made a considerable 
show in their little provincial world, where life was 
dull and monotonous to a terrible degree, being re- 
lieved only by visitors and visiting. 

How did he pass his time? His diary shows. 



* Kirkland's Washington, 178-180. Afterwards he charges again, 
and writes Richard Washington, "I want neither lace nor embroid- 
ery. Plain clothes, with gold or silver buttons, if worn, are a genteel 
dress, and are all that I desire." Yet he complains that his clothes 
have never fitted him well. Sparks, ii. 337. 

t Sparks, i. 109. Letter to Robert Cary. Sparks, ii. 328. Agri- 
cultural papers. Sparks, xii. Appendix. 



WASHINGTON. 93 

"January 1st, 1770. At home alone. 

" 2d January. At home all day. Mr. Peake 
dined here. 

"3d. At home all day alone. 

"4th. Went a hunting with John Custis and Lund 
Washington. Started a deer, and then a fox, but got 
neither. 

"5th. Went to Muddy Hole and Dogue Run. Car- 
ried the dogs with me, but found nothing. Mr. War- 
ner Washington and Mr. Thurston came in the even- 
ing. 

"6th. The two Colonel Fairfaxes dined here, and 
Mr. R. Alexander, and the two gentlemen that came 
the day before. The Belvoir family (Fairfaxes) re- 
turned after dinner. 

" 7th. Mr. Washington and Mr. Thurston went to 
Belvoir. 

" 8th. Went a hunting with Mr. Alexander, J. 
Custis, and Lund Washington. Killed a fox (a dog 
one), after three hours' chase. Mr. Alexander went 
away, and Mr. Thurston came in the afternoon. 

" 9th. Went a ducking, but ffot nothing, the creek 

~ 7 O O 7 

and rivers being froze. Robert Adam dined here and 
returned. 

" 10th. Mr. Washington and Mr. Thurston set off 
home. I went hunting on the Neck, and visited the 
plantation there, and killed a fox, after treeing it 
three times, and chasing it about three hours. 

" 11th. At home all day alone. 

" 12th. Ditto, ditto. 

" 13th. Dined at Belvoir, with Mrs. Washington 

7 o 

and Mr. and Miss Custis, and returned afterwards. 



94 WASHINGTON. 

"14th. At home all clay alone.* Bottled thirty- 
five dpzen cider. Fitted a two-eyed plough,. eyed 
instead of a duck-bill plough, and with much diffi- 
culty made my chariot wheel-horses plough. Put 
the poje-encl horses into the plough in the morning, 
and put in the postilion and hind horse in the after- 
noon ; but, the ground being well swarded over, and 
very heavy ploughing, I repented putting them in at 
all, for fear it should give them a habit of stopping 
in the chariot. Peter (my smith) and I, after several 
efforts to make a plough upon a new model, partly 
of my own contrivance, were fain to give it over, 
at least for the present." 

A week later we find, "Spent the greater part of 
the day in making a new plough of my own inven- 
tion." f His household books contain the names of 
his horses and his dogs. He does not seem to have 
busied himself with any intellectual pursuits. Books 
seldom appear in his orders for supplies from Eng- 
land. His diary contains no philosophic thought, — 
nothing which indicates an inquiring mind, only a 
mind attentive to the facts of every-day life, and 
scrupulously diligent in recording things of no great 
consequence. From this it appears that it took his 
grist-mill fifty-five minutes to grind four pecks of 
corn, but he was surprised to find that it made five 
pecks of Indian meal. This is the only scientific ob- 
servation I have heard of in his diary. His account 

* Kirkland, p. 184. f Kirkland, p. 191. 



WASHINGTON. 95 

of the way his slaves did their work is amusing as 
well as instructive. 

While still in active military service, in 1758, he 
was chosen member of the Virginia House of Bur- 
gesses for the next year. The poll cost him thirty- 
nine pounds six shillings. Among the articles neces- 
sary for the election, his book reads, a hogshead and 
a barrel of punch, thirty-five gallons of wine, forty- 
three of strong beer and cider.* In the Virginia, 
Assembly he was punctual in his attendance, modest 
in his deportment, but saldom spoke, and never 
made a set speech. He was distinguished for sound 
judgment and uncleviating sincerity. When trou- 
bles came, and the British Government sought to 
oppress the Colonies, Puritanic New England began 
the complaint, and Virginia did not tamely submit. 
A man of details and habits, more than of ideas or 
of philosophic principles, Washington was not one 
of the first to move, but at length joined readily 
and firmly in all the heroic acts to which the wild and 
eloquent Patrick Henry stirred the Virginia Legis- 
lature. He took a prominent part in opposing the 
Stamp Act, and other oppressive measures of the 
British Kins:, after the Boston Port Bill. In the ex- 
traordinary Convention, it is said Washington made 
the most eloquent speech that was ever made, " and 
said, I will raise one thousand men, and subsist 

* Sparks, ii. 297. 



96 WASHINGTON. 

« 

them at my own expense, and march myself at their 
head for the relief of Boston."* In 1769 he was 
thinking of the possibility of a fight between the 
Mother and Daughter, f 

The first Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, 
on September 5, 1774. Washington was one of the 
six delegates from Virginia, but does not appear to 
have been much distinguished. Yet Mr. Wirt re- 
lates that Patrick Henry said, "In respect to solid 
information and sound judgment, Colonel Washing- 
ton is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor. " J 

He was a member of the second Congress, which 
met 10th May 1775. This was after the battle of 
Lexington ; and he appeared there every day dressed 
in his military uniform. Like the war paint of an 
Indian, his soldierly dress was a figure of speech, to 
tell that the time of compromise had passed by, and 
the question must be settled, not by words, but by 
blows. 

IV. On June 15, 1775, at the suggestion of John 
Adams, Washington was chosen Commander-in-Chief 
of the American Army. Political motives determined 
the choice, fixing it on a Virginian. This was to 
conciliate the South, and make it friendly to the war. 

* Adams's Writings, ii. 3G0. 

t Sparks, ii. 351,' 400 (1774) ; i. 118. 

X Sparks, i. 132. 



WASHINGTON. 97 

His personal character, his wealth, his knowledge, 
moderation, skill, and integrity drew to him the far- 
reaching, honest eyes of John Adams. New Eng- 
land sagacity and self-denial alike suggested the 
choice. But New England ambition was not con- 
tent. In the French War New England had done 
much service, and had won laurels. The Southern 
States did nothing. Washington was the only officer 
who had acquired any distinction ; and he less than 
several men from the Eastern States. They natural- 
ly found fault. Hancock wanted the post. Cer- 
tainly he had done more than Colonel Washington 
to promote the Revolution ; and he long cherished a 
grudge, I think, against Adams for his nomination 
of Washington. The choice was a thoughtful com- 
promise. New England overcame her prejudices 
against a Southern man. The modest Virginian de- 
clared to Congress, "I beg it maybe remembered 
by every gentleman in the room that I declare, with 
the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to 
the command I am honored with." * He declined 
the compensation of five hundred dollars a month, 
and said, " As no pecuniary considerations would 
have tempted me to accept this arduous employ- 
ment, ... I do not wish to make any profit from 
it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses, 

* See the debate of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in the 
Boston Daily Advertiser of 17th June, 1858. 

7 



98 WASHINGTON. 

which I doubt not the Nation will discharge, and that 
is all I desire." He wrote a letter to his wife — the 
only one that he wrote which is preserved — con- 
cerning his election, and his acceptance of the office, 
and enclosing his will, just made. "As it has been a 
kind of destiny," says the modest man, "that has 
thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my 
undertaking is designed to answer some good 
purpose." He left Mount Vernon in May, 1775. 
He did not enter his own doors again till January, 
1784. 

The new Commander-in-Chief left Philadelphia June 
21, reached Cambridge on the 2d July, and took com- 
mand of the army the next day. He found a mot- 
ley collection of troops ; about seventeen thousand 
men, more than three thousand sick, all ill-dressed, 
ill-armed, ill-disciplined, and some with no muskets. 
The line extended fifteen or sixteen miles, by the 
then existing roads, from Charlestown Neck to Rox- 
bury. Most of the soldiers had enlisted for a short 
time. Few were willing to submit to the self-de- 
nial and stern discipline of actual war. The officers 
were ignorant of their duty. General Ward, the 
previous Commander-in-Chief, was old, and almost 
imbecile ; another General kept his chamber, talking 
" learnedly of cathartics and emetics." The camp was 
full of jealousies, rivalries, resentments, petty am- 
bitions ; men thinking much for themselves, little 



WASHINGTON. 99 

for their imperilled Nation. It is always so. We 
greatly misunderstand the difficulties of the time. 
About one third of the people in the Colonies were 
openly or secretly Tories. Self-denial is never easy, 
and then much of it was needful. Their trials were 
often borne grudgingly, and with many attempts to 
shift the burdens. Had such a spirit prevailed as our 
rhetoricians and orators of the Fourth of July tell us 
of, then the Revolution had all been over in a twelve- 
month, and every red-coat had been driven into the 
sea. But they were as mean and selfish in 1775 as 
they have been ever since. The battle of Lexington 
did not chancre human nature. Washington must 
create an army, create even the raw material of it. 
Congress had no adequate conception of the cost of 
war, and dealt out money with a stingy hand. It 
had little enough to give, and a war is of guineas. 
The people trusted in a volunteer militia serving but 
a few months, and were afraid of a standing army 
and a military tyrant. Nothing w r as ready, no clothes, 
tents, cannon ; even powder was scarce, and at one 
time there were not seven cartridges to a man. The 
sentinels returning from duty were not allowed to 
lire their pieces, but drew the charge. 

In Boston, there lay the British Army, superior in 
numbers, well drilled, armed well, and provided with 
all that wealth could buy or knowledge could devise. 
We talk of the heroism of 1776. We do not exag- 



100 WASHINGTON. 

gerate. No Nation was ever more valiant and self- 
denying. But Washington complains " of an egre- 
gious want of public spirit," of " fertility in the low 
arts of obtaining advantages." There were noble 
men, who would give up all their own property for 
the public good ; but there were others mean and 
base, who would take all from the public for their 
own advantage. Then, as now, times of trouble pro- 
duced a Hancock, an Adams : but how seldom ! The 
superior property, the superior education was on the 
Tory side. Very cool, veiy cautious and reserved, 
Washington had yet the zeal of an enthusiast, and 
hated the petty selfishness he met. He was not al- 
ways quite just to New Englanders. From the begin- 
ning of July, 1775, till the end of February, 1776, 
the army did nothing. How could it ? Often reduced 
to ten thousand men! Washington improved the 
intrenchments, drilled the soldiers, gave unity of ac- 
tion to the whole army. Feeble in men, and supplied 
only with poor and inefficient arms, he acted on the de- 
fensive. But in one night he clinched the industrial 
New England palm with a mighty fist, and on the sixth 
anniversary of the Boston Massacre, smote the Brit- 
ish Army a deadly blow. The enemy soon left New 
England, and took twelve hundred Tories along with 
them. A hostile troop has appeared in Massachu- 
setts but once since, — when it filed through the streets 
of Boston, and did its wicked work, with none to lift 



WASHINGTON. 101 

an arm, slashing the citizens with coward swords, — 
a wickedness not atoned for yet, but remembered 
against the day of reckoning. In New England, the 
people dwelt more compactly together than else- 
where in the Northern States. They were compara- 
tively rich, educated, and very industrious, with that 
disposition for military affairs belonging to men fa- 
miliar with the French and Indian Wars. But, after 
driving the British from Boston, Washington drew 
his army to New York, and, not having such sup- 
port as he found in Massachusetts, there followed a 
whole year of disasters. The Americans were driven 
from Long Island. Two New England Brigades of 
militia ran disgracefully from before the British guns. 
Washington abandoned New York. Fort Washington 
surrendered to the enemy nearly three thousand sol- 
diers. The flower of the army, with a great quantity 
of artillery, ammunition, and stores, were lost. The 
British ships sailed far up the Hudson River, once 
thought to be impregnably defended. Washington 
retreated through the Jerseys, his little army dwin- 
dling at every step ; without intrenching tools, with- 
out tents, and with few blankets. Many of the sol- 
diers were barefoot. He flew over the Passaic, over 
the Raritan, over the Delaware Rivers. At Christ- 
mas, the army made one desperate step back again, 
crossed the Delaware, captured many soldiers at 
Trenton ; then withdrew into the mountains, and 



102 WASHINGTON. 

into the darkness of night .and the snows of winter. 
So ended the first campaign. The very January af- 
ter the Declaration of Independence, with three thou- 
sand or four thousand men, Washington crept into 
his winter quarters at Morristown. What an army 
for such a work! The difficulties seemed immense. 
The Midland States were full of Tories, — cruel, re- 
vengeful, and malignant. Some of the American Gen- 
erals were of doubtful faith. General Lee had pur- 
posely suffered himself to be taken prisoner, that 
he might concert a treason * worse than Arnold's. 
Congress, discouraged, left Philadelphia and fled to 
Baltimore. Rhode Island was in the hands of the 
enemy. Many respectable citizens in the Midland 
States went over to the British. The Quakers hin- 
dered the American cause. The time of most of the 
soldiers expired. Recruits came in but slowly, and 
a new army must be created. Still Washington did 
not despair ! 

The next spring he regained the Jersej^s, but was 
soon forced to retire. Pennsylvania then, as now, 
the most ignorant of the Northern States, with its 
Quakers, did little for Independence. The prin- 
cipal citizens were not friendly to the Avar, or to 
its object. Philadelphia was almost a Tory town. 
Washington had no New England energy close at 
hand to furnish him provisions or men. He lost the 

* The fact has only just come to light. 



WASHINGTON. 103 

battle of Brandywine, failed at Germantown. Phil- 
adelphia fell into the hands of the enemy. During 
the winter of 1777-78 he went into winter quarters 
at Valley Forge. What a terrible winter it was for 
the hopes of Ameriea ! In 1776 he had an army of 
forty-seven thousand men, and the Nation was ex- 
hausted by the great effort. In 1777 it was less 
than twenty thousand men. Women, who had once 
melted their pewter plates into bullets, could not do 
it a second time. At Valley Forge, within a day's 
march of the enemy's headquarters, there were not 
twelve thousand soldiers. That winter they lay on 
the ground. So scarce w T ere blankets, that many 
were forced to sit up all night by their fires. At 
one time, more than a thousand soldiers had not a 
shoe to their feet. You could trace their march by 
the blood which their naked feet left in the ice. At 
one time, more than one fourth of all the troops there 
are reported as " unfit for duty, because barefoot or 
otherwise naked." Washington offered a prize for 
the best substitute for shoes made of untanned hides ! 
Even provisions failed. Once there was a famine in 
the camp, and Washington must seize provisions by 
violence, or the army would die. He ordered the 
Pennsjdvania farmers to thrash out the wdieat and sell 
it to him, or he would take it, and pay them only for 
the straw ! Congress was disheartened. The men 
of ability staid at home, and weaklings took their 



104 WASHINGTON. 

place. For some time there were only twenty-one 
members, and it was difficult to assemble a quorum 
of States for business. Tories abounded. There 
were cabals against Washington in the army. Mif- 
flin, Conway, Gates, Pickering, Schuyler, were hos- 
tile ; and they found abundant support in Congress. 
Samuel Adams distrusted Washington. So, too, did 
John Adams. James Lovell, of Massachusetts, and 
Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, were not more friend- 
ly, and far less honorable. It is not wholly to be won- 
dered at. Within a year Washington had lost New 
York and its neighborhood, — lost Philadelphia, and 
all the strongholds around it. He had gained but 
one victory worth naming, that at Trenton. In the 
mean time Burgoyne, an able soldier, with an admi- 
rable army, had walked into a trap on the North 
River, and had been taken by Gates and the North- 
ern Army, who were most of them militia of New Eng- 
land. It is not wonderful that men doubted, and 
thought that the selfish, mean-spirited, and loud-talk- 
ing General Conway would do better than the mod- 
est Washington to command the Army. Samuel 
Adams wanted democratic rotation in office that the 
General should be hired by the year ! If he had not 
been possessed of great wealth, and cared for noth- 
ing, I think Washington's command had come to an 
end before 1778. But Dr. Franklin was on the other 
side of the sea, and, with consummate art, he had 



WASHINGTON. 105 

induced the French Court to favor America with con- 
tributions of money and of arms, and after the sur- 
render of Burgoyne, to acknowledge the Indepen- 
dence of the United States, and to make an open 
treaty of alliance, furnishing America with money 
and men, artillery and stores. Then, first, America 
began to uplift her drooping head. But it must be 
confessed that when she found that a foreign Nation 
were ready to assist her, she was the less willing to 
raise money or men, or otherwise to hejp herself. 
She was fatigued, and wanted to rest. 

Within our moderate limits there is not time to tell 
the stoiy of the war — the mingled tale of nobleness, 
cowardice, and treachery. Peace came at last; and 
was proclaimed in camp on the 19th of April, 1783, 
eight years after the battle of Lexington. On the 23d 
of December, Washington returned his commission to 
Congress, and presented his account of personal ex- 
penses from January 15, 1775, to that date. They 
were, in all, sixty-four thousand three hundred and 
fifteen dollars. He then went home to Mount Ver- 
non, and attended to the duties of private life. Dur- 
ing the whole war the nobleness of the man stood out 
great and clear. But when the war was over the 
soldiers were not at once dismissed. The Nation did 
not seem inclined to compensate them for their suffer- 
ings, losses, or even for their expenses. They natu- 
rally became irritated because the money was thus 



106 WASHINGTON. 

withheld, which they had earned by such toil in the 
grim trials of battle. Then it was that they thought 
of seeking redress by their own armed hand. And 
then it was that Washington's nobility stood out 
grander than ever before. He placed himself between 
the Nation and the Army, and sought and found jus- 
tice to both. 

V. The bejnnnimr of 1784 beheld Washington at 
Mount Vernon with no public office. For almost 
eight } r ears his shadow had not fallen on his own 
threshold. His affairs had lapsed into some decay, 
spite of the prompt and vigilant care he took at a 
distance. "The horse is fatted by its master's eye," * 
and letters, once a week for eight years, are not like 
the daily presence of the owner. The active habits 
of public office were on him still ; and when he woke 
at daybreak, or before, it was his first impression to 
forecast the work of the day, till he remembered 
that he had no public work. But public cares still 
lay heavy on his mighty soul. The soldiers were 
his children ; and still ill fed by the Nation, and scat- 
tered abroad, they looked to him for help. He could 
give sympathy, if nothing more. He had his eye on 
the whole Nation personally, not officially ; anxious 
for the universal welfare. His correspondence was 
immense. He attended to agriculture, always his 

* " Equus saginatur in oculo domini." 



WASHINGTON. 107 

favorite pursuit; improved his lands, introduced bet- 
ter seeds and breeds of cattle. He exercised a great 
hospitality, and visitors of distinction crowded about 
his mansion. He sought to improve the whole State 
of Virginia, and had a scheme for uniting, by a canal, 
the Potomac and James Eivers with the waters be- 
yond the Alleghany Mountains. He took a deep and 
hearty interest in the public education of the people, 
giving both money and time for that purpose. 

America was then in a sad condition. The States 
were free from England, but not firmly united. 
"Thirteen staves, and ne'er a hoop, do not make a 
barrel." The destructive work of liberation had 
been once achieved by the sword. Next must come 
the constructive work of Union. Franklin's plan 
of Confederation, first proposed in 1754, afterwards 
offered in 1775, and at last accepted, with many 
variations, in 1778, was hardly adequate to unite the 
Nation, even when war pressed these thirteen dis- 
similar members together. In peace they soon fell 
asunder. The old Government was utterly inade- 
quate. Congress was a single body, composed of a 
single House, not of two Houses, as now. The 
vote was by States. Khocle .Island, with sixty thou- 
sand, counted as much as Virginia, with six hundred 
thousand inhabitants. There was no Executive Head. 
Congress was to administer its own laws. There 
were no Judiciary, no organized Departments for 



108 WASHINGTON. 

war, for foreign affairs, or for interior administra- 
tion. There were only administrative committees of 
Congress. 

The General Government could not raise money — 
could not pay a debt. The States were intensely 
jealous of each other. Men called Virginia, or 
Carolina, " my country," and did not recognize Amer- 
ica as such. It was a great work to organize the 
Nation, and form a national union of America, while, 
at the same time, the rights of the States, and the per- 
sonal freedom of individuals, were also to be sacred- 
ly preserved. How could the Nation found a firm 
central Power, which was indispensable, and yet keep 
intact the local self-government which each State 
required,' and to which it had become accustomed. 
Unless this theorem could be demonstrated in Ameri- 
ca, "Liberty" would become a mere Latin word, 
borrowed from the French. Tories said, "It is im- 
possible ! " An insurrection had already broken out 
in Massachusetts, which frightened the best men in 
the Nation, making John Adams and Washington 
tremble, and doubt democratic institutions. " Would 
it not be better to have a limited monarchy, an 
hereditary Senate?" So men talked. The Federal 
Convention of all the States was to meet at Philadel- 
phia, May 14, 1787. Many able men were chosen 
as delegates, Washington among them, and some 
very weak ones. But so little zeal was then felt, 



WASHINGTON. 109 

that on that clay only two States — Virginia and 
Pennsylvania — appeared to be represented at all. 
It was not until the 25th May that seven States, the 
required quorum for business, appeared by their dele- 
gates in the Convention, and then Massachusetts was 
represented by only a single man. Washington was 
President of the Convention, but it does not appear 
that he took any prominent part in making the Con- 
stitution. On the 17th of September the work was 
finished and signed — " done by consent of the 
States." I think no member of the Convention 
was satisfied with it. Nobody thought it perfect. 
Franklin and Washington disliked much of it, for 
opposite reasons perhaps. Democratic Mr. Gerry 
opposed it, and refused to sign it. Samuel Adams, 
John Hancock, and many more, not members of the 
Convention, were also hostile. At this clay we are 
not likely to do full justice to its authors, represent- 
ing such diverse local interests, and animated by such 
hostile political principles. To some the Constitution 
is a finality, an idol, and its authors inspired men. 
To others it is " a covenant with death," and its 
authors proportionall} T evil. I know its faults, at 
least some of them. Time will no doubt develop 
others, perhaps yet more fatal. I see its victims. 
There are four millions of them in the United States. 
I bhime its great men, especially Franklin, the great- 
est man then or since on the American continent. 



110 WASHINGTON. 

But I see their difficulties, and remember that no- 
body is so wise as everybody, and that now is a 
fool to the a^es which are to come. There was a 
Monarchic party, who wanted a strong central Gov- 
ernment. Alexander Hamilton was the ablest rep- 
resentative of that tendency. And there was a 
Democratic party, which contended vigorously for 
State Rights, and wished to keep all popular power, 
undelegated, in the hands of the people. Jefferson 
was the typical man of the Democrats. But he 
was out of the country, on his mission to France. 
There really was a danger that the thirteen States 
should not find a hoop to bind them all into a well- 
proportioned tub, which might stand on its own bot- 
tom. But the States accepted the Constitution, one 
by one, adding invaluable amendments. Seventy 
years is a short time in the life of a great people, 
and the day for the final judgment of the Constitu- 
tion has not yet come. 

VI. Washington was chosen President. With 
him there could be no competitor for that office. 
For the Vice-Presidency there might be many ; for, 
while it was plain who was the first man in popular 
esteem, it was not equally clear who was the second. 
But John Adams was chosen. In the beginning? of 
the Revolution, Massachusetts and Virginia went side . 
by side. So in the beginning of the Independent 



WASHINGTON. Ill 

United States must they be joined in the administra- 
tion of public affairs. It was very difficult to con- 
struct the new Government. All must be made 
anew. There were two great parties in the Nation. 
The Federalists, who were friendly to the Constitu- 
tion, and inclined to a strong central Government, 
some of them perhaps favoring a Monarchy and 
an Hereditary Senate. The Anti-Federalists, first 
called "Republicans," and afterwards "Democrats," 
who had opposed the Constitution, disliked a strong 
central power, and relied more upon the local self- 
government of the States, or upon the individual 
man. With his usual sagacity, Washington selected 
the best political talent of the country to help the 
great work, and with characteristic fairness he chose 
men from both parties. Jefferson was Secretary 
of State, Hamilton of the Treasury, General Henry 
Knox of War, and Edmund Randolph, Attorney- 
General. These composed the Cabinet. The Su- 
preme Court were to be appointed. He put John 
Jay at its head. He would not be President of a 
party, but sought to reconcile differences, and to 
fuse -all parties into one. The attempt could not 
succeed. There were quarrels in his own Cabinet, 
especially between Jefferson, w 7 ho was an ideal Dem- 
ocrat, with great confidence in the mass of the Peo- 
ple, and Hamilton, who inclined towards Monarchy, 
and had but small confidence in the People. In the 



112 WASHINGTON. 

eight years of Washington's two Presidencies the- 
country was full of strife and contentions be- 
tween these parties. No President has since had 
such difficulties to contend with — all was to be 
made anew ; the Departments of Government to be 
constructed, treaties to be negotiated with Foreign 

7 . O CD 

Powers, the revenue to be settled, the public debt 
to be paid, the Continental paper money to be pro- 
vided for, or the question disposed of, the limits of 
the constitutional power of the General Government 
to be fixed, the forms of procedure in the Federal 
courts to be settled. The Union itself was so new, 
the elements were so diverse, the interests of North 
and South so hostile, it was to be feared the whole 
would soon fall to pieces. But quickly the Govern- 
ment was organized, an admirable plan of Adminis- 
tration was devised, and the eight years brought in- 
creased stability to the American Institutions, greater 
confidence in them, greater welfare to the whole peo- 
ple, and additional renown to Washington. 

I will not here recapitulate the chief acts of his 
Administration. They are to be found in historical 
and biographical works. His leading principle was 
simply to be just to all, and demand justice from all. 
This was especially difficult in a time of such trou- 
ble; for while the constructive work of American 
Democracy was going on here, in Europe the great 
destructive forces of Humanity made the earth to 



WASHINGTON. 113 

quake, and to swallow clown the most ancient Mon- 
archy in the Christian world. Both countries felt 
the shock of the French Revolution. The Federal- 
ists generally took sides against France, and with 
England, who feared the revolutionary contagion. 
The Democrats favored the French, and were hos- 
tile to England, as being willing to arrest the prog- 
ress of mankind. Both parties were a little crazy. 

VII. On the 3d of March, 1797, Washington with- 
drew from public life, and in a few days again sat 
down at Mount Vernon, devoted himself to agricul- 
ture, and hoped to enjoy the pleasing leisure of a 
country life. But his Farewell Address could not 
save him from public duties. He was to die with 
his harness on. Fear of war with France called him 
again to the head of the American Army, which must 
be reconstructed in the midst of new and endless dif- 
ficulties. But soon a peaceful trumpet called him to 
another field. On the 14th December, 1799, Wash- 
ington ceased to be mortal ; and he who had been 
" tirst in war, and first in peace," became also "first 
in the hearts of his countrymen," where he still 
lives. 

It is not difficult to understand a character which 
is so plain, the features so distinct and strongly 
marked. 

8 



114 WASHINGTON. 

I. Look at his Intellect. 

He had not a great Reason — that philosophic prin- 
ciple which seeks the universal Law and the scientific 
truths, resting in them as ends. He was not a spec- 
ulative, but a practical man ; not at all devoted to 
Ideas. He had no tendency to Science. He did 
not look after causes, ultimate reasons, general 
laws ; only after facts. He was concerned with 
measures, not with principles. He seldom, if ever, 
made a philosophic remark on matter or on man. 
His diary is full of facts. It has no ideas, no hints 
or studies of a thoughtful character. He had little 
curiosity to learn the great generalizations of nature. 
It does not appear that he ever read a single philo- 
sophic book. His letters contain no ideas, and refer 
to no great principles. 

II. He had not much Imagination — that poetic 
power which rests in Ideal Beauty as its end. There 
was little of the ideal element in him. He takes no 
notice of the handsome things in Nature, Art, or Lit- 
erature. I remember but one reference to anything 
of the kind. That is to be found in the M Lowland 
Beauty," who so charmed him in boyhood. He 
looked at Use, not at Beauty. Handsome dress he 
prized for the dignity and consequence it gave him. 
This unideal character marks his style of writing, 
which is commonly formal, stiff, and rather prim, 



WASHINGTON. 115 

without ornament, or any of the little wayside beau- 
ties which spring up between the stones even of a 
military road. He seems to have had as little fond- 
ness for Literature as for Science . The books he read 
were practical works, which contained only informa- 
tion, and were quite destitute of the beauty, the in- 
spiration, and the charm of letters. In the great 
mass of documents which bear his name it is not 
always easy to see what is his. Some of his greatest 
State papers were the work of other hands. The 
Farewell Address must be adjudged to Madison, who 
made the original draft in 1792, and to Hamilton, who 
wrought it over in 1797. Washington wrote it out 
anew with his own hand, making some alterations. 
It required four months to get it ready, so important 
did Washington deem the occasion. The greater part 
of the letters which fill eighty manuscript volumes 
are written by his secretaries, who must think for 
him as well as write. Still, there are enough which 
came unaltered from his pen to show us what power 
of writing he possessed. 

It is refreshing to find that he sometimes departed 
from the solemn, dull, conventional language of State 
papers, and calls the British soldiers "Red Coats," 
and General Putnam "Old Put; " talks of "kicking 
up some dust," " making a rumpus," of nominating 
" men not fit to be shoe-blacks ; " speaks of " the 
rascally Puritanism of New England," and "the ras- 



116 WASHINGTON. 

cnlly Tories ; " " a scoundrel from Marblebead — a man 
of Property." But in general his style is plain and 
business-like, without fancy or figure of speech, and 
without wrath. His writings are not grass which 
grows in the fields ; they are hay which is pitched 
down from the mow in a barn. 

III. Washington had a Great Understand ins:. He 
had that admirable balance of faculties which we call 
good judgment ; the power of seeing the most expe- 
dient way of doing what must be done, — a quality 
more rare, perhaps, than what men call Genius. Yet 
his understanding was not of a wide range, but was 
limited to a few particulars, all pertaining to practi- 
cal affairs. 

Thus gifted, Washington w r as not an Originator. I 
think he discovered nothing, invented nothing — in 
war, in politics, or in agriculture. The " new plough 
of my own invention" came to nothing. He was a 
soldier nearly sixteen years. I do not find that he 
discovered anything new in military affairs. He sat 
in the Virginia Assembly of Burgesses ; was a dele- 
gate-to the Continental Congress, and was a member 
of the Federal Convention at the time when those 
bodies were busy with the most important matters ; 
but I do not learn that he brought forward any new 
idea, any original view of affairs, or ever proposed 
any new measure. He was eight years President, 



WASHINGTON. 117 

and left behind him no marks of originality, of inven- 
tive talent, or of power of deep insight into causes, 
into their modes of operation, or even into their 
remote effects. Here he stood on the common level 
of mankind, and saw no deeper or farther than ordi- 
nary men. But he was a good Organizer. Naturally 
systematic, industrious, and regular by early habit, 
he had the art to make things take an orderly shape, 
and to serve the purpose he had in view. Thus 
his large farm at Mount Vernon was managed with 
masterly skill ; the routine of crops was adjusted as 
well as was then known to the art of Agriculture. In 
the French and Indian War he took the raw human 
material, arrayed it into companies and regiments, and 
made a serviceable little army. In the War of the 
Revolution he did the same thing on a larger scale, 
and with, perhaps, yet greater difficulties in his way. 
He took the rude, undisciplined mass of New England 
valor at Cambridge, in 1775, and in a few months 
made it quite an effective army, able to strike a pow- 
erful blow. He was called on to do the same many 
times in that war, and almost always accomplished 
such tasks with consummate skill. He laid out his 
plans of a battle or campaign with great good sense. 
But I think he had no originality in his plans, or in 
his mode either of arranging his grounds or of mar- 
shalling his soldiers. He followed the old schemes, 
and always took abundant counsel. As President, 



118 WASHINGTON. 

he had much of this work of organization to attend 
to. With the help of the able heads of Adams, Jef- 
ferson, Hamilton, Jay, and others, it was successfully 
done. 

His sreat talent was that of Administration. He 
had that rare combination of judgment, courage, and 
capacity for action which enabled him to manage all 
things well. He was fond of detail — no little thing 
was too minute for his delicate eye. He administered 
his farm with severe and nice economy ; yet the 
system of Slavery did not allow it to be very produc- 
tive. His day-books show what all the men are 
doing. At home he remembered the value of the 
master's eye. 

While absent from Virginia eight years in the 
army, he had accounts continually remitted from his 
chief overseer, telling him of all the minute details of 
the ploughing, planting, reaping, threshing, raising 
tobacco, and selling it ; the birth of cattle and slaves, 
the health of his animal and of his Human stock. 
Always, once a week, Washington wrote to his over- 
seer, even in the most troublous times. I think that 
he never failed of this in all the period of storms, 
from January, 1770, to December, 1784. With the 
same skill he administered the affairs of the little mis- 
erable Virginia army in the French and Indian War, 
and the greater cares of the Revolutionary Army. 



WASHINGTON. 119 

The nearer we come to the facts, the more are we 
astonished at the great difficulties he surmounted — 
want of powder, want of guns, want of clothes, want 
of tents, want of shoes, and, above all, want of money, 
which is want of everything. We are amazed' at the 
jealousy of Congress, the bickerings and petty rival- 
ries of little and mean men ambitious of his military 
renown, at the coldness of the people of Pennsyl- 
vania, of Maryland, of the Carolinas, of Georgia, 
and their indifference, even, to their own success. 
But we are still more amazed at the high ability with 
which he administered his humble supplies of means 
and of men, and at the grand result he brought to 
pass. He was not a swift thinker ; he never fought 
a brilliant campaign, or more than a single brilliant 
battle — that at Trenton ; but I doubt that Alexander, 
that Cresar, that Napoleon, or even Hannibal, had 
more administrative military skill, save in this, that 
he had not the power to make rapid combinations on 
the field of battle ; he must think it all out before- 
hand, draw on paper the plan of movement, and fix 
the place of the troops. Hence he was skilful in 
attack, but not equally able when the assault was 
made upon him. He had slow, far-sighted judgment. 
In much time he prepared and wrought for much 
time. He had a real military talent, not a Genius 
for War. 

As President, he administered the political affairs 



120 WASHINGTON. 

of the Nation with the same skill, the same patience 
in details, the same comprehensive diligence. A 
man of judgment, not of genius, in all important 
military matters he required each colonel and officer 
to furnish a written report of what ought to be done, 
compared them all carefully, and made up his mind 
after a thorough knowledge of the facts, and a care- 
ful examination of the opinions of able men. 

I do not find that Washington had any new ideas 
about Government, or about political affairs. He 
opposed the British Despotism in 1768 ; but all New 
England had gone that way before him, and he fol- 
lowed after in the train of the ablest and some of the 
richest men in Virginia. He favored the union of 
the Colonies; but Franklin had su2f2fested that in 
1754, and Massachusetts, in 1770, appointed a com- 
mittee to confer with all the Colonial Legislatures . 
He attended the Continental Congress in 1774 ; but 
Franklin, then in England, had really originated it. 
He sought for Independence ; but, long before him. 
the great souls of Samuel Adams and Joseph Haw- 
ley had shown that it was indispensable, and the fiery 
tongue of Patrick Henry had proclaimed it. I think 
the Constitution does not owe a thought to him. The 
original plan of the details of the Federal Govern- 
ment docs not seem to have come from him, but from 
Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay. Let us be reverent of 
great names, also just. Washington's superiority to 



WASHINGTON. 121 

others was not intellectual. He was continually sur- 
rounded by abler minds in the Virginia Legislature 
and in the Continental Congress, in the Army and in 
the Cabinet. Compare him with Franklin, Samuel 
Adams, John Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, 
Madison, with Greene, Pickering, and many more. 
But he pretended to no intellectual greatness, and 
was one of the most modest of men. This appeared 
in all his life, from the day the Virginia Assembly 
presented the blushing colonel with their thanks, 
until he gave the people of the United States of 
America his Farewell Address. 

II. His excellence was moral. He had that con- 
stitution and quality of moral power which is to vir- 
tue what good sense is to intellect. One of the most 
conscientious of men, he was not morally romantic, 
enthusiastic, or transcendental. There was no more 
moonshine in his moral than in his intellectual char- 
acter. His virtue was not 

" too bright and good 
For human nature's daily food." 

1. His natural temperament did not much incline 
him to the vices of passion in youth, for he was of 
that stern and austere make which leans to strictness 
rather than to self-indulgence. He wrote in his 
copy-book, " Labor to keep alive in your breast that 



122 WASHINGTON. 

little spark of celestial fire called conscience." In 
few hearts did it ever burn with a steadier and more 
constant flame. Yet there was no unusual rigidity 
in his rules of life. He was a man, and not an 
ascetic. 

He had a nice love of order, and a quick instinct 
for decorum. This appears in the neatness of his 
writing-books at the age of thirteen ; in the accuracy 
of his diagrams made when he was a surveyor, farm- 
er, or soldier ; in the clear round hand and lucid style 
of his writings ; in the regularity of his habits ; the 
stately deportment which marked him, whether in 
the forest, the camp, or in the Senate of the Nation. 
Yet if you look carefully, you find he was not so fas- 
tidious as to order in thoughts as in things. He was 
fond of form and parade, and when President, adopt- 
ed the stately customs of Monarchic Courts, not un- 
justly complained of at the time as savoring of 
aristocracy, and looking towards kingly institutions. 
It may be that Hamilton, Adams, and others had 
more to do with this foolish parade than Washing- 
ton himself. Yet he loved splendor, and rode in a 
coach with four and sometimes six horses. Other 
Virginia gentlemen did the same. Men could not 
forget the old nonsense all at once. "Nihil saltatim, 
omne gradatim," is Nature's rule of conduct. He 
was accurate in his accounts, omitting no little de- 
tail, punctual in regard to time, orderly in all things. 



WxVSHINGTON. 123 

2. He had great power of wrath, inheriting the 
high, hasty temper of his mother. In youth he was 
" sudden and quick in quarrel." In middle life his 
passion was tremendous, sometimes getting vent in 
words, sometimes in blows. He never overcame this 
excess of heat, this congenital distemper of the blood. 
Jefferson tells of a great " occasion when the Presi- 
dent was much inflamed, got into one of those pas- 
sions when he cannot command himself," "called 
Freneau a rascal," and did not miscall him, and said 
"that, by God, he would rather be in his grave than 
in his present situation." * In the latter years of 
the Revolution his temper greatly offended the offi- 
cers. 

In 1775, at Cambridge, the army was destitute of 
powder. Washington sent Colonel Glover to Mar- 
blehead for a supply of that article, which was said 
to be there. At night the colonel returned, found 
Washington in front of his Head Quarters, pacing up 
and down. Glover saluted. The General, without 
returning his salute, asked, roughly, "Have you got 
the powder?" "No, sir." Washington swore out 
the great terrible Saxon oath, with all its three speci- 
fications. " Why did you come back, sir, without it? " 
" Sir, there is not a kernel of powder in Marble- 
head." Washington walked up and down a minute 
or two, in great agitation, and then said, "Colonel 

* See Jefferson's Works, ix. p. 164. 



124 WASHINGTON. 

Glover, here is my hand, if you will take it, and for- 
give me. The greatness of our danger made me 
forget what is due to you and to myself." 

Tobias Lear, his intimate friend, and private sec- 
retary, says, that in the winter of 1791, an officer 
brought a letter telling of General St. Clair's disas- 
trous defeat by the Indians. It must be delivered to 
the President himself. He left his family and guests 
at table, glanced over the contents, and when he re- 
joined them, seemed calm as usual. But afterwards, 
when he and Lear were alone, he walked the room 
silent a while, and then broke out in great agitation. 
"It is all over. St. Clair is defeated, routed; the 
officers nearly all killed, the men by wholesale ; the 
disaster complete, too shocking to think off, and a 
surprise into the bargain ! " He walked about, much 
agitated, and his wrath became terrible. "Yes," he 
burst forth, " here, on this very spot, I took leave of 
him. I wished him success and honor. 'You have 
your instructions,' I said, ' from the Secretary of War. 
I had myself a strict eye to them, and will add but 
one word, Beware of a surprise! I repeat it, Be- 
ware or a surprise ! You know how the Indians 
fight ! ' He went off with this, as my last solemn 
warning, thrown into his ears ; and yet, to suffer 
that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, 
tomahawked, by a surprise, the very thing I guarded 
him against! O God! O God! he is worse than 



WASHINGTON. 125 

a murderer ! How can he answer for it to his coun- 
try? The blood of the slain is upon him, the curse 
of widows and orphans, the curse of Heaven ! " His 
emotions were awful. After which he cooled a 
little, and sat down, and said, " This must not go 
beyond this room. General St. Clair shall have 
justice. I looked through the despatches, saw the 
whole disaster, but not all the particulars. I will 
receive him without displeasure; I will hear him 
without prejudice. He shall have full justice." * 

3. By nature and education he had a strong 
love of approbation, and seemed greedy of ap- 
plause. This appears in his somewhat worldly 
" Rules of Conduct," which he copied out in his 
youth ; in his fondness for dress, which did not 
come from a nice artistic sense of beauty, but rather 
from a desire to win the respect and esteem of other 
men ; and from that sensitiveness to public opinion 
which appears at all periods of his life, especially 
at the period when he was criticised with such 
cruel injustice and wanton insult. In early life he 
loved honor, and was ambitious for distinction, and 
so obtained a commission in the forces of Vir- 
ginia. 

I think he never had that mean passion of love of 

* See MSS. in Sparks's Washington, x. p. 222 ; Rush's Wash- 
ington in Domestic Life, pp. 67-69. 



126 WASHINGTON. 

approbation which is called vanity, and is to honor 
what the foam is to the sen. The scum ii genders 
drives before the wind, and unsubstantial melts 
away. 5Tet in all his manly public life as Legislator, 
General, President, I cannot find an instance in 
which he courted popularity. Office always sought 
him; he never sought it. In no instance did he 
sloop his majestic head to avoid calumny, or to pick 
up the applause which might be tainted with the 
least uncleanness. Admirers there were about him ; 
there was no place for a flatterer.* In all his public 
addresses, in all his official or private; letters, and in 
the reports of his familiar talk, there is no evidence 
that he referred to himself, or alluded to any great 
or good deed he had ever done 1 In the eleven 
thick volumes of his works, and in the many other 
manuscripts which are still preserved, I find not a 
line which was written with the; peacock feather of 
vanity, not a word which asks applause. After 
1700, the eyes of the nation — yes, of the world — 
were on the sublimest man in it. His eye was on 
the Nation, and on the Eternal Right, not on George 
Washington, or on his great deeds. Popularity is a 
hoy's bonfire in the street. Merit is the heavenly 
light of sun, and moon, and star. 

* In Villemain's, Vie de Chateaubriand (Paris, 1858), pp. 51, 52, 

see the aeeount of the youthful enthusiast's interview with Wash- 
ington in 1791. 



WASHINGTON. 127 

4. Washington was a courageous man. He had 
that vigorous animal bravery, which laughs at dan- 
ger and despises fear. Bat this was tempered with 
caution. It was discreet valor, which did not waste 
its strength. In his report of the little battle with 
Juinonville, in 1754, when he was twenty-two years 
of age, it is related that he said, "I heard the bullets 
whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming 
in the sound ! " King George the Second added, 
"He would not say so if he had been used to hearing 
many." When Washington was once questioned 
about the story, he. answered, "If I ever said so, it 
was when I was young." * 

But he had that hi^h moral courage, which dares 
affront perils greater than the whistling of bul- 
lets. He chose the right cause, though it were un- 
popular, and held to it, fearful of nothing but to do 
wrong. When defeated, he still bore up amid the 
greatest difficulties. The Americans were beaten in 
every attack made upon them, from the Battle of Bun- 
ker Hill, June 17, 1775, till the battle of Fort Mif- 
flin, October 22, 1777 : they were victorious only 
when they made the charge. Yet Washington did 
not despair. At Cambridge he had no powder, yet 
his courage and perseverance held out. He lost 
Long Island, New York Island, Fort Washington, 
and some three thousand men. This was the great- 

* Sparks, ii. 40. 



128 WASHINGTON. 

est disaster of the whole war. Il<" fled through the 
Jerseys, his army dwindling and shrinking lill lie 
bad hardly seven thousand men, ill armed, unpaid, 
ill elad, ill fed. Yel, his heart did not fail him. He 
wrote his brother, "If every nerve is not strained i<> 
recruit the new army with .'ill possible expedition, I 
think ili<' game is pretty nearly ni)." On the 20th 
December, L776, he tells the President of Congress, 
Mr. Hancock, "Ten days more will put an end (<> the 
existence <>f our army!" The recruits eame in 
slowly, and the enemy, in full force, lay at New 
York, within two days' march of him. But Washing- 
ton's courage <li<l not fail him, nor his hope. Many 
of the early officers of the Revolution left the army 
in disgust. The Nation did not pay their expen .<• , 
and made no promise of future indemnity. Thi i 
discouraged the men, and tli«',y could not enlist again 
after their favorite commanders were gone. But 
Washington still held on, and sought to cheer the 
fainting; semis of hoili officers and men. In 1777, when 
the lirilish lieM Philadelphia, and Washington went 
into winter quarters at Valley Forge, only a day's 
march off, at a time of the greatest peril, the coward- 
ly State of Pennsylvania had but twelve hundred 
militia in the Ii<:Id i<> defend their own firesides. 
Tories abounded, full of insolence. Congre s 
thinly attended. There were whole weeks with no 
quorum of Slides. Many of the members were b 



WASHINGTON. 129 

tile to him. But his great heart did not give up. 
There was a cabal in the army against him. Con- 
way, Gates, Mifflin, and perhaps Pickering, coveted 
his place, and attempted his ruin. Reed, his confi- 
dential secretary, was party to the intrigue. Mem- 
bers of Congress distrusted him, and openly or se- 
cretly opposed him, and wished to remove him from 
office. Had he not served them for nothing, they 
would have done so ; and yet this great soul bore 
up against it all, and never quailed before so mani- 
fold a storm of evil. 

5. Washington had a will of mighty strength, — 
firm, resolute, tenacious. When his mind was made 
up, nothing turned him aside. But he had such ad- 
mirable self-command that he was not at all invasive 
of the opinions of others. He respected the person- 
ality of men, and did not impose his will upon them ; 
neither did he allow others to intrude upon him ; but 
he kept himself apart, austerely as the northern star. 
He held the military power in exact subordination to 
the Civil. Where he was present, the laws spoke 
with clear voice. In the midst of arms, he did not 
abuse power. 

Yet he sometimes proposed harsh measures. He 

wished, in 1776, to arrest and confine all who refused 

to receive the Continental paper-money at par, and to 

report them for trial to the States to which they 

9 



130 WASHINGTON. 

belonged. He wanted speculators and forestallers 
brought to condign punishment. " I would to God," 
said he, in 1779, "that some one of the more atro- 
cious in each State were hung in chains upon a 
gallows five times as high as the one prepared for 
Hainan." * 

VI. The highest moral quality is Integrity, faith- 
fulness to conviction and to all delegated trust. This 
was his crowning virtue. He had it in the heroic 
degree. It appears in all his life, — from the boy of 
thirteen, diligently copying his tasks, to the famous 
man, well nigh threescore and ten. Here I know 
not who was his superior. I cannot put my finger 
on a deliberate act of his public or private life which 
would detract from this high praise. He had no sub- 
tilty of character, no cunning ; he hated duplicity, 
lying, and liars. He withdrew his confidence from 
Jefferson when he found him fraudulent ; from his 
secretary, Reed, when he was found false in a small 
particular. He would not appoint Aaron Burr to 
any office, because he knew him to be an intriguer. 
He could be silent, he could not feign ; simula- 
tion and dissimulation formed no part of his char- 
acter. Reserved, cautious, thinking before he spoke, 
I can find no act of his civil life which implies the 
least insincerity, the least want of ingenuousness in 
the man, 

* Hildreth, iii. 272. 



WASHINGTON. 131 

In war, he used fraud to spare force, and won the 
greatest triumph of the Revolution by a military lie. 
In 1781, the British General Clinton had an army at 
New York, Cornwallis another m Virginia. Wash- 
ington lay along on the North River and the Jerseys. 
He meant to strike Cornwallis. To render the blow 
sure and effective, he must make it appear that he 
intended to attack New York. He did so more than 
a year beforehand. He deceived the highest civil 
officers, the highest military officers, and all the Mid- 
dle and Eastern Sti.tes. To mislead the enemy, he 
collected forage and boats in the neighborhood of 
New York, built ovens, as if he intended to remain 
there and attack the city. He wrote letters to the 
American and French officers, ordering them to that 
place, for he should besiege the town, and sent them 
so that they were sure to fall into the enemy's hands. 
He deceived friend and foe. Then at the right 
moment he broke up his camp, marched hastily to 
Virginia, and dealt the fatal blow at Cornwallis at 
Yorktown.* 

All this deception was as necessary to his military 
plan as powder to his cannon. It implies no deceit- 
fulness of character in the deceiver. 

He had no meanness, no little resentments. If he 
wronged a man in his hasty temper, he sought to 
repair the wrong. There was nothing selfish in his 

* Sparks, viii. 141 ; ix. 402. 



132 WASHINGTON. 

ambition. He rises above the most of men about 
him, — in the camp, in the Congress, or the Cabinet, — 
as a tall pine above the brushwood at its feet. He 
did nothing little. After the fighting was over, the 
army was not paid, and there was no certainty of 
payment. The Nation might leave it to the States, 
and the States might refer it back again to the Na- 
tion. The Government was weak from its centre, 
and not efficient or respectable from the character of 
some, of its members. A portion of the officers of the 
army, aided by monarchial men in all the States, 
wished to make Washington king. He needed only 
to say "Yes," and the deed was done. He pushed 
the crown away with conscientious horror. 

How admirable was all his conduct after the cessa- 
tion of hostilities ! He was faithful to the army, 
faithful to the Nation, because he was faithful to him- 
self. How grand was his address to the army, — his 
letter to the governors of the States, — his address to 
Congress when he returned his commission ! In all 
the history of mankind, can one find such another 
example of forbearance — a triumphant soldier refus- 
ing power, and preferring to go back and till his 

farm ? 

" His means were pure and spotless as his ends." 

III. Washington was not what would be called an 
affectionate man, or one rich in tender emotions of 
love. Neither his nature nor his breeding tended 



WASHINGTON. 133 

that way. His nature seems more stern than kindly ; 
exact and moral, but not loving. He was a soldier 
at nineteen. Great cares lay on him in his early 
youth, and chilled the growth of the gentler emo- 
tions. His marriage was not very propitious. Mrs. 
Washington appears as a dressy, fashionable woman, 
without much head or heart. The one letter of her 
husband, and his occasional references to her, do not 
give us a very pleasing picture of the woman. It is 
said " she took the forward end of the matrimonial 
yoke." To command and obey is a soldier's duty. 
The great General practised the first in the army, and 
the last at Mount Vernon. He had no children, 
and so lost the best part of his affectional education. 
There was nothing in his circumstances to supply the 
original defect of nature. And so, upright in his 
principles before God, and downright before man, 
he was not affectionate and loving. Few flowers of 
that tender quality spring up along his military, offi- 
cial, or domestic paths. He was a just guardian, rath- 
er than an affectionate uncle. He was bashful and 
silent among women. Yet he was a benevolent man, 
and charitable. He was attached to his relations. He 
seems to have loved Lafayette. He had confidence in 
Generals Knox, Lincoln, Greene, Governor Jona- 
than Trumbull, Joseph Reed, Madison, Tobias Lear, 
perhaps Harrison, and at one time Jefferson. I 
think of none besides ; but beyond this confidence he 



134 WASHINGTON. 

had little affection for them. Yet he had no ten- 
dency to cruelty, and mitigated, as far as possible, 
the horrors of war. He had delicate feelings to- 
wards prisoners, but no pity for the " rascally To- 
ries," as he calls them. He wore his wife's miniature 
all his life. It lay on his bosom when he died. But 
at his death there were no tender partings for her. 
He took leave of no one, but died like a soldier. 

Nobody was familiar with Washington ; scarcely 
any one intimate. Men felt admiration, reverence, 
awe, devotion for this collection of grand qualities, 
but not love. They would lay down their lives for 
him, but they could not take him to their heart. He 
would not suffer it. 

IV. In Washington's religious character there ap- 
pears the same peculiarity which distinguished his 
intellectual, moral, and affectional relations. He had 
much of the principle, little of the sentiment of re- 
ligion. He was more moral than pious. In earlier 
life a certain respect for ecclesiastical laws made him 
a vestryman of two Episcopal Churches, and kept 
him attentive to those externals, which, with minis- 
ters and reporters for the newspapers, pass for the 
substance of religion. It does not appear that he 
took a deep and spiritual delight in religious emo- 
tions, still less in poetry, works of art, or in the 
beauty of Nature. His disposition did not incline 



WASHINGTON. 135 

that way. But he had a devout reverence for the 
First Cause of all things, and a sublime, never- 
failing trust in that Providence which watches over 
the affairs alike of nations and of men. He had a 
strong, unalterable determination to do his duty to 
his God, with an habitual dread of aught unworthy 
of that Holy Name. I do not think he always for- 
gave his enemies, like Dr. Franklin ; but he took no 
revenge on others, and never, save in momentary 
wrath, spoke ill words of men who hated and sought 
to ruin him. 

In the latter years of his life, from 1778 till death, 
he partook of what is called the Lord's Supper but 
once. Ministers have taken their revenge for the 
omission, and have denied or doubted his religious 
character. 

It is not easy to ascertain in detail his theological 
opinions, for on that matter he held his peace. Min- 
isters often sought to learn his creed. It was in 
vain. Once only he spoke of "the pure and benign 
light of Revelation," and "the Divine Author of our 
blessed Religion." Silence is a figure of speech. In 
his latter years he had no more belief in the popular 
theology than John Adams or Benjamin Franklin, 
though, unlike them, he was not a speculative man. 
He was entirely free from all cant, bigotry, and in- 
tolerance. 

Ministers, anxious to claim so noble a man for the 



136 WASHINGTON. 

Christian Church, find proof of his religious practices 
iu the fact that he punished swearing in the array, 
had prayers in the camp at Fort Necessity in 1754, 
attended meeting, referred to Divine Providence, 
spoke with praise of Christianity, and once, during 
the Revolution, took bread and wine in a Presbyte- 
rian meeting-house. I find his religion rather in the 
general devoutness of the man, and in his continual 
trust in God ; in the manly self-command which tri- 
umphed over such a wild tempest of wrath as he 
sometimes held chained within him,- and which kept 
within bounds that natural love of power, of all 
evil tendencies the most difficult, perhaps, to over- 
come. I find it in that he sought duty always, and 
never glory. I find it in the heroic integrity of the 
jnan, which so illustrated his whole life. Above all 
do I find it in his relation to the Nation's greatest 
crime. He was born a slaveholder, and so bred. 
Slaves fell to him by his marriage, which were the 
entailed property of his wife, and could not be got 
rid off' till her death. The African slave-trade was 
then thought as legitimate and honorable a trade 
as dealing in cattle, in land, in wheat, or in oil. 
Washington disliked slavery, thought it wrong and 
wicked. In June, 1774, he was chairman of the 
committee which drafted the resolution of Fairfax 
County, and was the moderator of the meeting 
which passed them. "No slaves ought to be import- 



WASHINGTON. 137 

eel into any of the British colonies on this Continent." 
They express the " most earnest wishes to have an 
entire stop put forever to such a wicked, cruel, and 
unnatural traffic." In 1783, he writes to Lafayette, 
who had bought an estate in Cayenne, with a view to 
emancipate the slaves, "I shall be happy to join you 
in so laudable a work. It is a generous and noble 
proof of your humanity. Would to God a like 
spirit might diffuse itself into the heart of the people 
of this country. But I despair of seeing it. By de- 
grees it certainly might, and assuredly ought, to be 
effected, and that, too, by legislative authority. " 

In his famous farewell to the army, he congratulat- 
ed the soldiers of the Revolution on their helping out 
this stupendous fabric of Freedom and Empire, on 
protecting the rights of Human Nature, and estab- 
lishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all 
nations and religions." * He sought to promote the 
emancipation of all the slaves in Virginia. That 
could not be done. At last, by his will, he set 
free all his own bondmen. Their delivery was to 
take place at the death of his wife. He wished it 
before, but it could not be brought to pass. He 
provided for the feeble and the old. The young 
ones were to be free at twenty- five, and be taught to 

* In a letter to the English or Scotch gentleman who wished to 
settle in Virginia, he thinks he may object to slavery; "but slavery 
will not last long," says he. 



138 WASHINGTON. 

read and write. He says, "I .do hereby expressly 
forbid the, sale, or transportation out of the said Com- 
monwealth, of any slave! may die possessed of, un- 
der any pretence whatsoever. I do moreover most 
pointedly and most solemnly enjoin it upon my exec- 
utors to see that this clause respecting slaves, and 
every part hereof, be religiously fulfilled, without 
evasion, neglect, or delay." Here Washington rose 
superior to his age ; here I find proof of the religious 
character of the man. If Christianity be more than 
one of the many delusions imposed on a groaning 
world, it is because it is that Religion which consists 
in natural piety, the love of God, and in natural 
morality, the keeping of his laws. And if Morality 
and Piety be Religion, then who shall dare charge 
Washington with lack of Christianity? Shall Min- 
isters, who fawn upon wickedness, and Legislators, 
who enact iniquity into Laws? But great man as 
he was, — conscientious, moral, religious, in the high 
sense of that abused word, "religion," — he was not 
without his errors and great offences in the matter 
of slavery. A negro fell in the Boston Massacre. 
One of the seventy at Lexington, "who fired the 
shot heard round the world," was a negro, and died 
for liberty on the 19th April, 1775. There were 
many Africans in the battle of Bunker Hill ; the 
Rhode Island troops, in the Revolution, were full of 
black men. In the terrible fight in defence of Red 



WASHINGTON. 139 

Bank, on the Delaware, in 1777, a negro regiment 
from New England stood in the thickest of the bat- 
tle. Washington was a leading member of the Fed- 
eral Convention. He and Franklin were the great- 
est men in the Nation. Had Washington, the great 
and successful General, the President of the Conven- 
tion, with the Nation's eyes fixed upon him, said to 
that body, "Let there be no slaves in the United 
States," there had been none to-day. We might 
have lost the termagant and noisy Tory Sister Caro- 
lina; we should have gained millions of Freemen. 
But Washington sat, and said nothing. I doubt not 
his conscientiousness. 

When he was chosen President in 1789, numerous 
public bodies sent him their congratulations ; most 
of the States adding their hearty testimonials of per- 
sonal respect. The Legislature of Georgia sent the 
address of that State, and complained of "the facility 
of our black people crossing the Spanish line, from 
whence we have never been able to recover them." 
This was the beginning of the Florida War. This 
the first address of Georgia. Washington promises 
to attend to that matter, and in 1791 attempts to re- 
cover those poor exiles of Florida, who had sought 
refuge from bondage anions: Christians, by fleeing to 
the Creek Indians in Spanish America. Thus Wash- 
ington appears in the second year of his Presidency 
as a national stealer of men, no doubt sorely against 



140 WASHINGTON. 

his will.* He seized the first fugitive slave in June 
7, 1793, — one of the early invasions of the Fed- 
eral Government upon the rights of the States. One 
of the favorite slaves of his wife ran away. He heard 
she was living at Portsmouth, in the State of New 
Hampshire, and he wrote to some Government officer 
there, asking if she could be arrested and brought 
back without riot and public scandal. The answer 
was, " No ! The arrest of a fugitive woman as 
the slave of General Washington would not be 
tolerated in New Hampshire." The President gave 
up the pursuit. I make no doubt with inw T ard de- 
light. 

You will say, "He did little for the freedom of the 
slaves." He did more than all Presidents, with the 
exception of Jefferson and Madison. Think of any 
President for forty years daring to call slavery 
" wicked," w unnatural," to commend emancipation, 
or liberate his slaves at his death. Some ministers 
would say, "He hath denied the faith, and is worse 
than an infidel ! " Judge men by their own acts, and 
by their own light, not by yours or mine. Before he 
left the earth, he wrenched the fetters from off each 
bondman's foot, and, as he began his flight to heaven, 
dropped them down into the bottomless pit of Hell, 
where they may find who seek. 

In his person, Washington was six feet high, and 

* Sparks, x. 163; xii. 181. 



WASHINGTON. 141 

rather slender. His limbs were long ; his hands 
were uncommonly large, his chest broad and full, his 
head was exactly round, and the hair brown in man- 
hood, but gray at fifty ; his forehead rather low and re- 
treating, the nose large and massy, the mouth wide and 
firm, the chin square and heavy,- the cheeks full and 
ruddy in early life. His eyes were blue and hand- 
some, but not quick or nervous. He required specta- 
tacles to read with at fifty. He was one of the best 
riders- in the United States, but, like some other good 
riders, awkward and shambling in his walk. He was 
stately in his bearing, reserved, distant, and appar- 
ently haughty. Shy among women, he was not a 
great talker in any company, but a careful observer 
and listener. He read, the natural temper of men, but 
not always aright. He seldom smiled. He did not 
laugh with his face, but in his body, and while calm 
above, below the diaphragm his laughter was copious 
and earnest. Like many grave persons, he was fond 
of jokes and loved humorous stories. He had negro 
story-tellers to regale him with fun and anecdotes at 
Mount Vernon. He was not critical about his food, 
but fond of tea. He took beer or cider at dinner, and 
occasionally wine. He hated drunkenness, gaming, . 
and tobacco. He had a hearty love of farming, and 
of private life. There was nothing of the politician 
in him, no particle of cunning. He was one of the 
most industrious of men. Not an elegant or accurate 



142 WASHINGTON. 

writer, he yet took great pains with style, and, after 
the Revolution, carefully corrected the letters he had 
written in the time of the French War, more than 
thirty years before. He was no orator, like Jeffer- 
son, Franklin, Madison, and others, who had great 
influence in American affairs. He never made a 
speech. The public papers were drafted for him, 
and he read them when the occasion came. Wash- 
ington was no Democrat. Like the Federal party 
he belonged to, he had little confidence in the people. 
He thought more of the Judicial and Executive De- 
partments than of the Legislative body. He loved 
a strong central power, not local self-government. 
A little tumult, like Shays's insurrection in Massachu- 
setts, or the rebellion in Pennsylvania, made him and 
his Federal associates tremble for the safety of the 
Nation. He did not know that "something must be 
forgiven to the spirit of Liberty." In his adminis- 
tration as President, he attempted to unite the two 
parties, — the Federal party, with its tendency to mon- 
archy, and perhaps desire for it, and the Democratic 
party, which thought that the Government was al- 
ready too strong. But there was a quarrel between 
Hamilton and Jefferson, who unavoidably hated each 
other. The Democrats would not serve in Washing- 
ton's Cabinet. The violent, arbitrary, and invasive 
will of Hamilton acquired an undue influence over 
Washington, who was beginning, at sixty-four, to feel 



WASHINGTON. 143 

the effects of age ; and he inclined more and more 
to severe laws and consolidated power, while on the 
other part the Nation became more and more demo- 
cratic. Washington went on his own w T ay, and yet 
filled his Cabinet with men less tolerant of Repub- 
licanism than himself. 

Of all the great men whom Virginia has produced, 
Washington was least like the State that bore him. 
He is not Southern in many particulars. In charac- 
ter, he is as much a New Englander as either Ad- 
ams. Yet, wonderful to tell, he never understood 
New England. The slaveholder, bred in Virginia, 
could not comprehend a state of society where the 
Captain or the Colonel came from the same class as 
the common soldier, and that off duty they should 
be equals. He thought common soldiers should only 
be provided with food and clothes, and have no pay. 
Their families should not be provided for by the 
State. He wanted the officers to be "gentlemen," 
and, as much as possible, separate from the soldier.* 
He asked the Massachusetts Legislature, of 1775, to 
impress men into the Revolutionary Army, and to 
force them to fight for the liberty of not being forced 
to fight. He finds more fault with New England in 
one year than with all the other nine States in seven 
years. He complains of the egregious want of pub- 

* He thought the government of an army must be a perfect des- 
potism. Hildreth, hi. pp. 1C3-166. 



144 WASHINGTON. 

lie spirit in New England ; but little Massachusetts 
provided more men and more money than all the 
wide States south of Mason's and Dixon's Line, and 
drove her Tories down to Halifax, while the Southern 
States kept theirs at home ! While he was uttering 
his murmurs, the little State of Rhode Island had 
more than four thousand soldiers and sailors in actual 
service ; yet her whole population was not sixty 
thousand souls. Thus one fifteenth of her entire 
population, counting men, women, and children, was 
in active service at one time.* In like ratio, Vir- 
ginia should have had forty thousand soldiers in the 
field. Yet in 1779-80 General Arnold, the traitor, 
with less than two thousand men, ravaged the whole 
State of Virginia for two years. Jefferson did noth- 
ing against him. Washington does not complain of 
Virginia's egregious want of public spirit. He never 
understood New England ; never loved it, never did 
it full justice. It has been said Washington was 
not a great soldier ; but certainly he created an 
army out of the roughest materials, outgeneral led 
all that Britain could send against him, and in the 
mi 1st of poverty and distress, organized victory. 
He was not brill iaut and rapid. He was slow, defen- 
sive, and victorious. He made " an empty bag stand 
upright," which Franklin says is "hard." Some men 
command the world, or hold its admiration by their 

* Sparks's American Biography, vol. xix. p. 384. 



WASHINGTON. 145 

Ideas or by their Intellect. Washington had neither 
Original Ideas, nor. a deeply-cultured mind. He 
commands by his Integrity, by his Justice. He loved 
Power by instinct, and strong Government by reflec- 
tive choice. Twice he was made Dictator, with abso- 
lute power, and never abused the awful and despotic 
trust. The monarchic soldiers and civilians would 
make him King. He trampled on their offer, and 
went back to his fields of corn and tobacco at Mount 
Vernon. The grandest act of his public life was to 
give up his power ; the most magnanimous deed of 
his private life was to liberate his slaves. 

Washington is the first man of his type ; when will 
there be another? As yet the American rhetori- 
cians do not dare tell half his excellence ; but the 
people should not complain. 

Cromwell is the greatest Anglo-Saxon who w T as 
ever a Ruler on a large scale. In intellect he was 
immensely superior to Washington ; in integrity, im- 
measurably below him. For one thousand years no 
king "in Christendom has shown such greatness, or 
gives us so high a type of manly virtue. He never 
dissembled. He sought nothing for himself. In him 
there was no unsound spot ; nothing little or mean in 
his character. The whole was clean and presentable. 
We think better of mankind because he lived, adorn- 
ing the earth w T ith a life so noble. Shall we make 
an Idol of him, and worship it with huzzas on the 
10 



146 WASHINGTON. 

Fourth of July, and with stupid Rhetoric oh other 
days? Shall we build him a great monument, found- 
ing it in a slave pen ? His glory already covers the 
Continent. More than two hundred places bear his 
name. He is revered as "The Father of his Coun- 
try." The people are his memorial. The New York 
Indians hold this tradition of him. "Alone, of all 
white men," say they, "he has been admitted to the 
Indian Heaven, because of his justice to the Red 
Men. He lives in a great palace, - built like a fort. 
All the Indians, as they go to Heaven, pass by, and 
he himself is in his uniform, a sword at his side, 
walking to and fro. They bow reverently, with great 
humility. He returns the salute, but says nothing." 
Such is the reward of his Justice to the Red Men. 
God be thanked for such a man. 

" A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, 
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride, 
The rage of power, the blast of public breath, 
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death." 



JOHN ADAMS. 



(147) 



JOHN ADAMS. 



In 1634 the General Court of the Colony of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay made a grant of lands at Mount 
Wollaston (now in the town of Quincy) to enlarge 
the town of Boston. In 1636 the inhabitants of 
Boston granted some of those lands in lots to indi- 
vidual settlers, and even to new residents, who 
presently formed a church, and settled their minis- 
ters. In 1640 they were incorporated as a town, 
which bore the name of Braintree. I find forty 
acres of land granted to one Henry Adams. Pie 
died in 1646, and left an estate appraised at sev- 
enty-five pounds, thirteen shillings. It consisted of 
the land, a barn, and a house, which had one fvitchen, 
one parlor, and one chamber in the attic, where 
dwelt the eleven persons who made up the family. 
The inventory of his estate, taken after his death, 
catalogues " three beds," which must have contained 
them all at night. He left also one cow, one heifer, 
swine, some old books, and a silver spoon. He was 
grandfather's grandfather to the second President of 

(149) 



150 JOHN ADAMS. 

the United States. It was not a conspicuous fam- 
ily in those times, though it has since borne two 
Presidents, and is still vigorous and flourishing, 
promising I know not how great future glories. 
On the other side of the water antiquaries and gen- 
ealogists find that the family was old and baronial. 

Indeed, the name would justify a larger genea- 
logical claim. The Adamses ought to be an old 
family and a great. According to the received ac- 
counts, it is the first in the world. Look at the far- 
famed descendant of this Puritanic Jlenry of Brain- 
tree, and see what he did and suffered, and what 
extraordinary events he thereby brought to pass. 

To understand his life, divide it into six parts : — 

I. His childhood and youth, from birth till twenty- 
three. 1735 to 1758. 

II. His doings as a lawyer in Suffolk County, 
from twenty-three till about forty. 1758 to 1775. 

III. His work as a politician in Congress and at 
home, from forty till forty-three. 1775 to 1778. 

IV. Diplomatic services in Europe, from forty- 
three till fifty-two. 1778 to 1787. 

V. His conduct in the Executive of the United 
States as Vice-President and President, from fifty- 
two to sixty-five. 1787 to 1800. 

VI. His demeanor in private life, from sixty-five 
till nearly ninety-one, the close of all. 1800 to 1826. 



JOHN ADAMS. 151 

I. 

His Childhood and Youth. 

John Adams was born October 19, 1735. His 
father, John Adams, then forty-four years old, and 
married but the year before, was a farmer, with 
small means, living in that part of Braintree now 
called Quincy ; a farmer and a shoemaker at the 
same time, says the local tradition. When he died, 
in 1760, he left an estate of thirteen hundred and 
thirty pounds nine shillings and eightpence — about 
four or five thousand dollars in our money. He 
•was an officer in the British militia, and for several 
years one of the Selectmen of the town, and also for 
many years a deacon of the church. He seems to 
have been a well-educated man, thoughtful, thrifty, 
careful, with considerable capacity, genuine piety, 
and great uprightness of character. Integrity is a 
virtue his son could inherit if virtue runs in families. 
John was the eldest child of this household, which, at 
length, counted twelve, — a number then not uncom- 
mon. Of his childhood and early youth I find noth- 
ing on record. In his sixteenth year he entered Har- 
vard College. He had studied w T ith two tutors — Mr. 
Cleverly, the Congregational Minister of the town, 
and Mr. Marsh, the reader at the Episcopal Church. 
Slender help it was that he got from them. He was 



152 JOHN ADAMS. 

graduated at Harvard College in 1755, ranking as 
fourteenth in a class of twenty-four. In the classes 
the precedence was dependent upon the social condi- 
tion of the parents ; and as to that, his mother, a Boyl- 
ston from Brookline, seems to have been considered 
of higher family than that of the deacon, his father. 
The learning he brought out of college would not 
now qualify a boy to enter there. But it appears 
that he stood well in his scholarship. Certainly he 
had " small Latin, and less Greek." A year after 
his graduation I find him studying Virgil, mastering 
thirty lines in one day, and "about forty" the next, 
in the precious spare time left to him by his more 
serious work. Three years later he is reading 
Horace. In 1760 he writes in his Diary, "Incon- 
sequence of the ignorance of parents, masters Clev- 
erly, Marsh, Waters, Mayhew, &c, and by reason 
of the ignorance of my instructors in the more ad- 
vanced years of my life, my mind has lain uncultured, 
so that at twenty-five I am obliged to study Homer 
and Horace. Proh dolor!" Certainly he got lit- 
tle classic culture from Harvard then. Yet his class 
contained men afterwards distinguished, who, per- 
haps, got less even than he. The standard of what 
was called Education, was then exceeding low. But 
then, as now, scholarship and manhood were differ- 
ent things, and did not always ride in the same 
panniers. Presently, after graduating, he went to 



JOHN ADAMS. 153 

Worcester to keep a common school, which was 
kept continuously throughout the year, in a town 
of perhaps fifteen hundred inhabitants, where he 
seems to have taught all disciples, from A, B, C, up- 
wards to Latin and Greek, or as far as his pupils 
could go. He thought his labor was great, and his 
pay small. He " boards round," as the phrase was 
then ; a little while here, a little while there. It 
was the custom of the times. I do not find exactly 
what his salary was, but the town had several dis- 
trict schools, each keeping part of the year, and 
raised but seventy pounds, or two hundred and 
thirty-three dollars forty-four cents, for the support 
of them all. Adams's share could not have been 
more than one hundred and twenty-five dollars, or 
jDerhaps one hundred and fifty dollars, in addition 
to his board. He does not like the business, and 
now and then grumbles about it. " The mischievous 
tricks, the perpetual invincible prate, and the stupid 
dulness of my scholars, roused my passions."* His 
situation was extremely irksome. He says, " The 
school is indeed a school of affliction. A large 
number of little nurslings, just capable of lisping 
A, B, C, and troubling the master." Some one 
tells him he may make those little creatures "plants 
of renown," and " cedars of Lebanon." But Mr. 

* Adams's Life of Adams, ii. 88 ; i. 22. See, too, Talk of J. Q. 
Adams about that, ib. 



154 JOHN ADAMS. 

Adams tells him "that keeping this school any 
length of time would make a base weed and igno- 
ble shrub of me." He kept it nearly three years, 
however, and yet grew up to a pretty respectable 
tree, not yet done blossoming in the Politics of 
America, but still fresh and vigorous as a hundred 
years ago. It came of good seed that tree. The 
people of the town pleased him no better. " All 
the conversation was dry disputes upon politics 
and rural obscene wit." Yet there were intelli- 
gent and reading men in the little village. Mr. 
Adams's proclivity to grumble appears early. How 
he kept school I know not. But as he went for two 
years, and staid more than three, it would appear 
he surpassed other teachers. 

He must choose a profession, this young Hercules. 
His father intended him for the Christian Ministry. 
His uncle Joseph, the eldest of his grandfather's 
twelve children, had before him entered that pro- 
fession. The pulpit then absorbed most of the best 
talent of New England, which now runs away from 
it with swift acceleration. His nature inclined him 
to become a minister, for he was a devout man, 
severe in his morality, warring against all the sins 
of passion, austere, fond of theological books and of 
ecclesiastical ceremonies. But he had a profound 
need of looking all important things in the face, 
and taking nothing on hearsay, or at second hand. 



JOHN ADAMS. 155 

He was possessed with a love of freedom, and a 
contempt for all bigots and haters of mankind. It 
soon appeared clearly that a New England pulpit 
was no place for him. He became acquainted with a 
noble, generous young man, of fine genius, admirable 
culture, who aspired to the best parish in the Prov- 
ince. But he was suspected of Arminianism, and 
accordingly "despised by some, ridiculed by others, 
and detested by most." " People are not disposed to 
inquire for piety, integrity, good sense, or learning 
in a young preacher, but for stupidity (for so I must 
call the pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces), 
irresistible grace, and original sin." So he wrote on 
his twenty-first birthday : " The pulpit is no place 
for you, young man ! and the sooner you give up all 
thoughts of it the better for you, though the worse 
for it, and for all such as look up to it." His atten- 
tion was called to the profession of medicine, board- 
ing as he did with Dr. Willard, who " had a large 
practice, a good reputation for skill, and a pretty 
library." He read a good deal in Cheyne, Syden- 
ham, Van Swieten, but turned away his eyes from 
the healing art. Nay, he seriously thought of the 
opposite art — that of killing. " Nothing but want of 
interest and patronage prevented me from enlisting 
in the army. Could I have obtained a troop of horse 
or a company of foot, I should infallibly have been a 



156 JOHN ADAMS. 

soldier." * It was in 1756, the time of the French 
War, and all New England blazed with military ar- 
dor. Trade and farming attracted his attention, but 
he finally fixed his eyes upon the Law, and determined 
on that for his calling. On his twenty-first birthday, 
in the same letter before quoted, he writes, " If I can 
gain the honor of treading in the rear, and silently 
admiring the noble air and gallant achievements of 
the foremost rank, I shall think myself worthy of a 
louder triumph than if I had headed the whole army 
of Orthodox preachers. f The study and practice 
of law, I am sure, does not dissolve the obligations 
of morality or of Religion." 

So he agrees to study with a Mr. Putnam, a thriv- 
ing lawyer of Worcester, for two years, and to pay 
him one hundred dollars for the instruction when he 
may become able to pay the debt. Here he contin- 
ued till October, 1758, keeping school six hours a 
day, and studying Law most of the spare time, as 
his health and temper allowed. His educational 
helps at Worcester were not to be despised. There 
were several educated and thoughtful men there, who 
had broken away from the ecclesiastical chains which 
yet bound so many. The war forced men to think 
and discuss great matters, the result of which is re- 

* Letter of October 19, 1756, Works i. 36; and also letter of 
March 13, 1817, p. 38. t Works, i. 37, and ii. 31. 



JOHN ADAMS. 157 

fleeted in one of his earliest letters. He read the 
works of some thoughtful men, — Lord Bacon, Bo- 
lingbroke, Morgan, Bishop Butler, not less than Til- 
lotson and Baxter. The influence of the Freethinkers, 
Bolinsrbroke and Morgan, is obvious and decisive. 

He studied laboriously the law books deemed 
essential in those days, some of which look rather 
frightful to young lawyers now that the legal road is 
straightened, smoothed, and made easy. He loves 
to go to the original source of things. This appears 
in his early habits of study. But he had great diffi- 
culties to contend with, whereof poverty was the 
least. His Diary tells us what he thought of himself, 
lie affected wit and humor. His attention was un- 
steady and irregular. "He had a remarkable absence 
of mind, a morose and unsocial disposition." He com- 
plains of his own idleness, late rising, waste of time 
in day-dreams, and gallavanting the girls. This latter 
annoyed him for a long time, till he remedied that 
mischief in the most natural way. He charges him- 
self with " rash and profane swearing," with " viru- 
lence " against divers people. But his intense vanity 
was his greatest foe in early life. " Vanity," writes 
the candid youth of twenty, "is my cardinal vice and 
cardinal folly." * Envy, likewise, gnawed at the heart 
of the poor lad ; but he keeps free from the vices of 
passion. 

* Works, ii. 16, 25, and elsewhere. 



158 JOHN ADAMS. 

II. 

His Life as a Lawyer. 1758-1774. 

After his two years of study at Worcester, he re- 
turns to Braintree, is admitted to practice in the 
Superior Court of Massachusetts, October 5, 1758, 
and establishes himself as a lawyer in his native vil- 
lage. But his legal education is only begun. In the 
midst of internal difficulties, he toils away at his 
work, not without sighing for his old school at 
Worcester, which he so much disliked while there. 
His plan of legal study was quite comprehensive. He 
wished to understand Natural Law, which is justice, 
and so would study the great writers on Ethics, the 
Common Law of England, and the Statutes, and also 
the Civil Law of Kome, which has had such influ- 
ence on the administration of Justice throughout all 
Christendom. Such study demanded the reading of 
many books — a weariness to his flesh ; for he was 
lazy and impetuous by turns, and unlit for the schol- 
ar's slow, silent work. But his ambition was intense 
and persistent, though he grumbled at the difficulty 
of studying Law while practising it during "a ram- 
bling, roving, vagrant, vagabond life," "of here and 
everywhere." His townsmen were disposed to honor 
their young lawyer a little. They therefore elected 



JOHN ADAMS. 159 

him. one of the highway Surveyors, and he willing- 
ly undertook the business of mending the roads of 
Braintree — his first official work. His first cause 
in court was a failure. His writ was ill drawn. He 
feared it would be so, and did not wish to undertake 
it ; but. the " cruel reproaches of my mother," and 
other considerations, misled him. However, he 
overcame his own defeat, and after some years had 
a considerable business. Still his reputation grew 
slowly. 

On the 25th of October, 1764, he married Miss 
Abigail Smith, daughter of Rev. Mr. Smith, minis- 
ter of Weymouth, a town adjoining Braintree, and 
then he commenced housekeeping on his own ac- 
count. The course of true love, it seems, had its 
troubles in his, as in many cases. Mr. Smith held 
his daughter in high consideration. He had married 
the daughter of Colonel John Quincy, who was of 
an aristocratic Braintree family, having some prop- 
erty, and being a good deal engrossed in the public 
affairs of the Colony. Her grandmother was named 
Norton, and came from the town of Hingham, Mas- 
sachusetts, and was of the same family as the fa- 
mous John Norton, a dreadful minister of Ipswich, 
and afterwards of Boston, who helped to hang the 
Quakers. John Norton was a man very pious, it was 
said, but in his case, it was "grace grafted on a crab 
stock." She was also a daughter of the minister at 



160 JOHN ADAMS. 

Hingham, and descended from the famous Thomas 
Shepard, first minister of Newton, now Cambridge. 
These were the aristocracy and " first families " of 
that day. The minister and his daughters belonged 
to the West End of Weymouth, for even Weymouth 
had its West End at that time. But poor John Ad- 
ams, a man of obscure descent, did not belong to the 
West End of anything. Should he be allowed to carry 
off such a prize ? Tradition says the Reverend father 
thought not. He had three daughters, Mary, or, as 
she was then called, Polly, the elder, Abby, the 
middle one, and Betsey, the younger. Mr. Richard 
Cranch, also of Braintree, but born in England, was 
a man of some talents, with great mechanical skill, 
wherewith he had fought his own way to education, 
and had acquired reputation and some wealth as a 
lawyer. He also came a wooing at the same man- 
sion, addressing himself to Miss Polly, while Mr. 
Adams made similar visits on behalf of Miss Abby. 
Mr. Cranch was warmly welcomed by the Reverend 
father. He treated him with great consideration. 
On Sunday nights, which were even then, as now, 
consecrated to the pious uses of the Religion of Young 
Hearts, Mr. Cranch's horse was well cared for at the 
parochial barn, and he was himself treated with great 
kindness and consideration in the parochial house. 
But John Adams was thought a disloyal subject by 
the minister; hot, impetuous, impatient, uncertain, 



JOHN ADAMS. 161 

with nothing on hand, and no decided future. So, 
while the daughter smiled, the father frowned on the 
poor, obscure lover. He treated him rudely, neg- 
lected him, overlooked and annoyed him not a little. 
His horse ate hay on Sunday night. Of course all 
the little country parish knew how his affairs were 
going on in the minister's family, and the story soon 
spread to the regions round about. 

Mr. Smith had told each of his daughters that the 
Sunday before their marriage he would preach them 
a sermon, from whatever text they should choose. 
When Mr. Cranch was ready, Miss Polly selected 
" Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not 
be taken away from her." John and Abby were both 
present to hear the discourse, and all the parish sat 
and listened with greedy wonder. The old gentle- 
man expatiated upon the " good part." It was obe- 
dience. He dwelt with great unction on the- neces- 
sity of obedience on the part of children to their 
parents. It was especially important that daughters 
should obey in all things ; and more particularly in 
the matter of selecting a husband. "And Mary hath 
chosen that good part." But, in due time, Mr. Ad- 
ams also had a cage ready for the minister's second 
bird. Abby must choose her text, the bright girl. 
She took, "John came neither eating nor drinking, 
and they say, He hath a devil." The old man objected, 
but the daughter would not be entreated, and he 
11 



162 JOHN ADAMS. 

preached on the text in the case of the aforesaid 
John and Abby, and to the no little delight of the 
parish.* 

Miss Abby was an admirable woman, religions 
without fanaticism or bigotry, affectionate as wife 
and mother, conscientious to the last degree, but not 
at all austere ; thrifty, wise, prudent, and forecast- 
ing, and with calm, cool judgment, which saw the 
right proportion of all things. If Adams was not 
blessed in his courtship, he was in his marriage. Few 
men had ever a nobler mate. He Ions: afterwards 
writes of his marriage, that it was " the source of all " 
his "felicity." Her education was quite scanty and 
irregular; she was never sent to school, but picked 
up a little here and there. She read a few books, 
chiefly poetical, it seems ; but the Spectator was 
among them. So were the historic plays of Shake- 
speare, and perhaps the others. These were faithful- 
ly read, judiciously pondered over, and abundantly 
quoted during all her life, in her letters. She said 
herself, — 

"The little knowledge I have gained 
Was all from simple nature drained." f 

* The story is differently told by other authorities. 

t Her father, a cautious man, taught, above all things, never to 
speak ill of anybody; to say all the handsome things she could 
of persons, but no evil. But her grandfather, John Quincy, was 
remarkable for never praising anybody ; he did not often speak evil, 
but he seldom spoke well. Adams's Works, ii. 306. 



JOHN ADAMS. 163 

The education of women was greatly neglected in 
New England by the Puritans. Mrs. Hutchinson 
had made them afraid of her strong and subtle 
mind, accomplished with conscientious culture. In 
Adams's youth it was fashionable to ridicule " female 
learning." 

After his marriage to the minister's daughter of 
Weymouth, the descendant from such reverend an- 
cestors, his profession and business received a con- 
siderable increase. A year or two later his towns- 
men honored him by making him one of the Select- 
men of Braintree. He entered upon his office the 
4th of March, 1766. He mentions the fact with 
hearty exultation, not thinking of another Fourth of 
March, thirty-one years later, General Washington 
and fifteen States in the background. For four gen- 
erations some of his family had been members of the 
board of Selectmen. Before lonsr he became well 
known in the county. He took lively interest in op- 
posing the Stamp Act, and got a town meeting called 
at Braintree, to instruct her representative in the 
General Court to oppose this wicked measure, and 
resist its execution. He drafted the Resolutions, and 
the town meeting passed them unanimously. Forty 
other towns soon accepted them without alteration. 
They contain brave words, thoughtfully spoken at the 
right time.* His celebrated Revolutionary kinsman, 

* Works, iii. p. 4G5. See, especially, 467, third paragraph. 



164 JOHN ADAMS.. 

Samuel Adams, adopted some of his paragraphs, and 
the town of Boston, in Faneuil Hall, then said "Ay." 
In the midst of the Stamp Act trouble, 22d Decem- 
ber, 1765, Forefathers' Day, Sunday, he writes in his 
journal, "At home with my family, thinking; " and 
again, Christmas Day, "At home, thinking, reading, 
searchimr concerning taxation without consent ; con- 
cerning the great pause and rest in business." * 

There was great matter for him to think of. New 
England stood at the threshold of Revolution, and 
only Samuel Adams and a few more saw where the 
next step would be. As the people would not ac- 
cept the stamps, the courts of justice were all closed. 
Boston asked the Governor and Council to open the 
courts, and chose Mr. Gridley, James Otis, and 
John Adams to defend their position. It was a 
great honor for the young men, Otis and Adams, to 
be employed in such a cause, and to be associated 
with such counsel as Gridley, the. ablest lawyer and 
the most elegant speaker in New England. f This 
was " the matter " he was " thinking " about. He 
believes the people showed cowardice by this inac- 
tivity, and too much respect for the Act. J He says 
the lawyers, most of them, became Tories and went 
down to Halifax. " The bar seem to behave like a 
flock of shot pigeons ! " " The net seems to be 

* Works, ii. 162-164. f See Works, i. 76 ; ii. 165. 
% Works, ii. 155. 



JOHN ADAMS. 165 

thrown over them, and they have scarcely courage 
left to flounce and to flutter."* The "Sons of Lib- 
erty" were made of other stuff, and so was John 
Adams. 

But the Stamp Act troubles got ended by the re- 
peal of the law in 1766. w It was founded on a mis- 
taken principle." But the Massachusetts Legislature 
had already taken the first needful step of Revolu- 
tion, and had called a Convention of delegates. All 
the Colonial Legislatures had been summoned to 
meet at New York on the first Tuesday of October, 
1765. f 

In the spring of 1768 Mr. Adams removed his 
family to Boston, living in Brattle Square. Gov- 
ernor Bernard offered him a considerable place in 
the Government, — the office of Advocate General. 
Adams at once refused it. He was poor : this of- 
fered him money. He was ambitious : this assured 
him respect and high consideration, and opened the 
road to all honor. But he was just, and said, " Get 
thee behind me, Satan." Nay, he would not ask to 
be appointed Justice of the Peace, so cautious was 
he of receiving favors which mi^ht bias his iudsr- 
ment. Yet he took no active part in politics, would 
not speak at the Boston town meetings, then so fre- 
quent and important. He would not even attend 

* Works, ii. 156. t Works, i. p. 68, 109. 



166 JOHN ADAMS. 

them. He devoted himself to his profession and to 
the support of his family. Yet he was popular with 
the Patriotic party. The Sous of Liberty came at 
night and serenaded him in his house, close to the 
main guard of the British soldiers, who had then 
been quartered upon the suspected and rebellious 
town. He was placed on the Committee to prepare 
instructions for James Otis, Thomas Gushing, Sam- 
uel Adams, and John Hancock, the Boston Repre- 
sentatives. 

On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre, so called, 
occurred. Captain Preston, who commanded, and 
the six soldiers who fired the fatal shot, were ar- 
rested and held in jail, to be tried for murder. They 
applied to Mr. Adams to defend them. He con- 
sented, against the advice of all his friends. He in- 
duced Mr. Josiah Quincy, Jr., to aid in the defence. 
Distinguished lawyers had declined to help the sol- 
diers, for they feared the popular opinion, which 
demanded their blood. His acceptance of this duty 
was a most unpopular act, making him suspected of 
favoring the Government whose soldiers he was 
called upon to defend. It was considered " ruinous " 
for him. A great clamor was raised against him. He 
managed the case skilfully. All were acquitted of 
the charge of murder, two only found guilty of man- 
slaughter. Thus far this was the most valiant deed 
of his life. It cost him fourteen or fifteen days of 



JOHN ADAMS. 167 

most arduous work, and the sum received in payment 
of all his labor and success was nineteen guineas, 
say, ninety-five dollars ! * 

While the case was still pending, he was chosen 
one of the Representatives of the town of Boston to 
the great Convention, 16th of June, 1770. I believe 
Samuel Adams brought this to pass. Now, for the 
first time, is he really committed to the Politics of 
the People. " I consider the step as a devotion of 
my family to ruin, and of myself to death," said he.t 
" At this time I had more business at the bar than 
any man in the Province. My health was feeble, and 
I was throwing away as bright prospects as any man 
ever had before him. I had devoted myself to end- 
less labor and anxiety, if not to infamy and to death, 
and that for nothing, except what indeed was, and 
ought to be all in all, a sense of duty." He told his 
wife ; she saw the peril, burst into tears, and said, 
the noble woman, " You have done as you ought, and 
I am willing to share in all that is to come, and to 
place my trust in Providence." { 

Soon after, the Boston Representatives, or, as they 
were then called, " the Boston Seat," raised some 
controversy with the Governor. Governor Shirley, 

* Works, i. 104, 110; ii. 229. 

f Works, ii. 232; i. 106. See remarks of John Quincy Adams. 

X Works, ii. 232. 



1G3 JOHN ADAMS. 

then living in retirement at Roxbury, hearing of it, 
asked, "Who are the Boston Seat?" He was told, 
" Mr. Gushing, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Samuel Adams, 
and Mr. John Adams." The old Governor replied, 
w Mr. Cushing I know, and Mr. Hancock I know, 
but where the devil this brace of Adamses come from 
I know not." Had he lived a little longer, he might 
have found out where they went to, taking the Nation 
with them.* 

In the General Court, John Adams was of great 
service to the Patriots. They needed an able and 
ready lawyer. Thatcher was dead ; Otis was worse 
than dead, the victim of his own intemperance and 
of the malignant blows of an assassin. Mr. Hawley, 
one of the ablest and most far-sighted men in the 
Province, lived at Northampton, and was, moreover, 
too melancholy for a principal leader in the General 
Court. John Adams seemed made for the vacant 
place — a skilful lawyer on the People's side. You 
find his name on most of the important committees, 
and the marks of his pen, his thought and technical 
skill, in the chief papers of that session. But his 
health failing, he declined reelection, and retired to 
his farm at Braintree, still keeping his office in Bos- 
ton, determined to avoid politics altogether. But 
his profession, nature, and the circumstances of the 

* He died March 24, 1771. 



JOHN ADAMS. 169 

times, were too strong for him. He must take sides 
with the people, and against the officers of the Crown ; 
and I find his busy pen writing articles for the 
newspapers in the great controversy of the day. 

Though no longer in the General Court, it seems 
that he drafted the most important paper on the 
Great Question of those times, and was called upon 
to defend it. This he promptly and ably did ; * and 
Hutchinson was foiled in his attempt to prove the 
legal right of Parliament to tax the Colonies, or to 
rule them against their consent. Then came (1773) 
Dr. Franklin's exposure of the letters of Hutchinson 
and Oliver, who had suggested to the British Gov- 
ernment that in New England " there must be an 
abridgment of what we call British liberties." The 
wrath of the people was fairly stirred by this adroit 
movement of Franklin reaching across the sea.f 

May 25, 1773, was Election clay in Massachu- 
setts. The House of Representatives chose John 
Adams as one of the Council. Governor Hutchin- 
son, who hated him bitterly, put his negative on the 
choice, because of "the very conspicuous part he 
had taken in opposition to the Government." But 
soon the General Court addressed the King, asking 
him to remove Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant 

* Works, i. 118; ii. 310. 
t See ante, page 28. 



170 JOHN ADAMS. 

Governor Oliver, both Massachusetts men, both 
traitors. Hutchinson went to London to confer with 
the British Government, but he never saw his native 
land again.* No patriotic eye drops a tear on the 
neglected grave of the New England man whose 
splendid talents and popular eloquence were de- 
voted to the ruin of his native land, and who strug- 
gled violently to put a chain on the neck of his 
fellow-countrymen. Hutchinson had prevented 
Adams from being one of the Honorable Council ; 
but, before the eye of the world, he himself soon 
became unknown, and trampled in the dust. 

The British Government wished to control the 
judges. It is an old trick. "Let me interpret 
the laws, I care not who makes them," is the 
motto of tyrants to this very day. Of course the 
judges were willing: when were they otherwise? 
But the people of that day refused to have a chain 
of gold put round the court-house by the King, un- 
der which all his creature Judges must crawl as they 
went in. One Chief Justice, without performing 
any of the duties of his office, actually took the 
royal salary for eighteen months afterwards. Three 
of the puisne judges could not be relied upon. The 
House adjourned the General Court, and asked the 
Governor to remove the Chief Justice. . The Governor 

* Adams's Works, i. 135. 



JOHN ADAMS. 171 

forbade the adjournment, and refused the removal. 
What should be done? Should such a Judge, who 
himself is the King's slave, hold a court, and de- 
termine the law for freemen? In 1773 wise men 
thought that such folly would be ruin ! John 
Adams said, "Impeach the Chief Justice.* The 
Charter of William and Mary gives the House of 
Eepresentatives the power." Other lawyers — law- 
yers are always a timid class of men, their maxim 
being " stare decisis " — -hesitated. They "did not 
know; " "there was no American precedent." John 
Adams w r as not only careful to follow the old pre- 
cedents that were good, but also to make the good 
precedents that we use now. The Chief Justice 
was impeached ; ninety-two to eight in the House 
of Representatives. When Jurors came into the 
Courts of Suffolk County they w T ould not be sworn. 
Said they, "We shall not sit under a Judge im- 
peached of high crimes and misdemeanors." Jurors 
did the same all over the State. The Royal Court 
never sat again. Nay, there w r ere no courts till 
after April 19, 1775, w 7 hen the Provincial Govern- 
ment set things on their feet again. Here was a 
deadlock for the Government. Hutchinson and Oli- 
ver, and their gang of Tories, were routed in the 
House, routed in the Courts, and routed before the 
People. 

* Adams's Works, ii. 329. 



172 JOHN ADAMS. 

It was the beginning of the end ; but, generally, 
men did not see it, only such men as Samuel Adams, 
Joseph Hawley, and the far-sighted Franklin, al- 
ready advising a General Congress.* Adams, then 
thirty-eight years old, was the ablest lawyer in New 
England, perhaps in America. He had the right 
thought at the right time, and the courage to make 
that thought a thing. Shall such a man be left " to 
live on potatoes and Indian meal" at Braintree, with 
nothing to do? Massachusetts thought otherwise. 



III. 

Mr. Adams as a Politician in the American 
. Congress. 1774-1777. 

The Boston Port Bill, and other revengeful acts, 
were passed through the Parliament of Great Brit- 
ain in March, 1774. In the following 13th May, 
General Gage, the Military Governor of Massachu- 
setts, came to Boston with his army, to dragoon 
the people into submission. As the Judges were 
impeached, the Courts were all closed, business was 
at an end, and grass growing on the Long Wharf. 
Adams did not receive a shillins: a week from his 
profession. 



o 



* Adams's Works, i. 134. 



JOHN ADAMS. 173 

The 17th of June is a marked epoch in American 
History. On that clay, 1774, the General Court, in 
session at Salem, sat with its doors bolted fast. 
"No man must go out to tell what they are doing, 
nor come in to interrupt them." They chose, by a 
vote of one hundred and seventeen ayes to twelve 
nays, James Bowdoin, Thomas Gushing, Robert 
Treat Paine, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, as 
delegates to the Continental Congress, to meet at 
Philadelphia on the first of the next September. 
Adams doubted his own ability, doubted the Na- 
tion's genius.* Mr. Bowdoin did not attend. He 
had too much money to risk in such an enterprise, 
too much respectability to be a member of a Revo- 
lutionary Congress. 

The four delegates rode to Philadelphia in a coach 
— "four "poor pilgrims." Their journey through 
New England was a triumphal procession. At 
New Haven they visited the grave of Dixwell the 
Regicide. A significant visit that was to the tomb 
of one of the fifty-two, who said, "Off with the 
head of Charles Stuart. He is not fit to live, and 
enslave Englishmen." Until he reached New York 

* Adams's Works, i. 148. "We have not men fit for the times. 
We are deficient in genius, in education, in travel, in fortune, in 
everything. I feel unutterable anxiety. God grant us wisdom and 
fortitude ! Should the opposition be suppressed, should this coun- 
try submit, what infamy and ruin! God forbid! Death, in any 
form, is less terrible." Also, Works ii. 338. 



174 JOHN ADAMS. 

at this time, Aclams had never been out of New 
England. 

In Congress the New England delegates had a 
very difficult part to perform. They were regarded 
with great distrust. First, they were Puritan peo- 
ple; second, they were thought desirous of break- 
ing with the British Government, and aiming at 
Independence. Virginia alone stood with New 
England. All the other States looked on with 
suspicion, especially New York and Pennsylvania. 
This was the problem : To have New England ideas 
prevail without putting forward New England men. 
Samuel Adams was the most far-sighted and revo- 
lutionary man then in the Nation. None surpassed 
him in the great art of organizing men, of leading 
the unwilling, while he seemed only to follow. At 
first the two Adamses did not seem to have much 
influence. They were looked on with great suspi- 
cion. At length it turned out that they put their 
ideas into all the rest. But, at the beginning, Vir- 
ginia was nearly as far advanced as New England. 
Bichard Henry Lee stood side by side with Samuel 
Adams. " The grave, stern figure " of George Wash- 
ington was not far off. There he was, at the second 
session, after the battle of Lexington, symbolically 
clad in his military uniform, a sword at his side, the 
thoughtful Colonel, who spoke in deeds, not words. 

John Aclams continued as a member of Congress 



JOHN ADAMS. 175 

from September, 1774, till November, 1777. The 
first session lasted but eight weeks — consulting, 
making a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, and 
preparing Petitions and Memorials to the British 
Government and people. On the 10th of May it 
assembled again. During his service in that body 
Mr. Adams tried to induce Congress to adopt the 
Massachusetts Army, — which had been gathered 
after the battle of Lexington, — to make the fislit 
national, and to put that gallant son of Virginia, 
George Washington, at its head ; thus to gain that 
great State of Virginia, and all the Southern States, 
so that they should make common cause with New 
England; to advise the individual States to anni- 
hilate their old Provincial Governments and de- 
pendence on Great Britain, and to make a new 
Constitutional Government of their own ; to de- 
clare Independence ; to unite the States into one 
Confederation ; to make alliances with Foreign Na- 
tions, and to establish a Navy. 

It was a difficult matter to accomplish all this, but 
it was done ; partly by John Adams's ardent vigor ; 
partly by the admirable resource and persuasive tal- 
ent of Samuel Adams, so ably helped by Richard 
Henry Lee, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others ; 
partly by the quiet diligence and immense intellect 
of Dr. Franklin. But at this day it is impossible to 
tell in detail what each man did. Congress sat with 



176 JOHN ADAMS. 

closed doors. The journals gave nothing but re- 
ports, and these in the most official and meagre 
form. Mr. Adams's Diary, his own letters, and 
those of others, help to eke out the scanty record. 
The Declaration of Rights and Grievances, Octo- 
ber 18, 1774, was one -of the most important docu- 
ments of the Revolutionary Congress. Mr. Adams 
drafted it, and was the author of its most impor- 
tant parts. He seems to have had something to do 
with composing the Declaration of Independence. 
A copy of the original draft is still extant in his 
handwriting, and in England another copy in Frank- 
lin's, it is said.* John Adams was the chief orator 
in defence of the Declaration, and of Independence 
itself (" the Colossus of that debate ") , but no ves- 
tige of his speech remains. He drew up the rules 
and regulations for the Navy, the foundation of the 
present naval code ; also he drafted the Articles 
of War. We must thank him for selecting George 
Washington to be the Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army.f Mr. Hancock, it seems, wanted the office, 
and never forgave Adams for placing Colonel Wash- 
ington in it. But afterwards John Adams, like 
Samuel Adams, and many others, had at times 
some distrust of Washington. It was not to be 
wondered at ; not surprising that such should have 
been the case. 

* Works, i. 232. f Works, i. 175, 245, 265 ; ii. 415. 



JOHN ADAMS. 177 

111 several things Adams ran before the mass of 
the leaders in Congress. He. did not wish the vote 
to be by States, for this gave to Delaware and Rhode 
Island as much power as to Virginia and Massachu- 
setts. He did not hope much good from the short- 
sighted agreement not to import from Great Britain, 
and not to export to her shores. He saw the im- 
portance of a Navy, perhaps before an} r other mem- 
ber of Congress, and he decidedly favored a Military 
Academy. 

He labored hard in three years of his service. He 
was chairman of twenty-five Committees, and served 
likewise on sixty-five more. This does not include a 
number of committees as to which the names of the 
members are not recorded in the journals of Con- 
gress. For a long time he was chairman of the 
Board of War, performing the work of the Secre- 
tary of War under the Revolutionary Government. 
Yet he was never a recognized leader in Congress. 
His rapid, impatient mind disdained the intermedi- 
ate steps in the slow process of attaining great ends. 
But he really led men, the course of events greatly 
aiding him. Still, in the march of Independence, 
he never shot so far before the rest as his deep- 
hearted and more silent kinsman, Samuel Adams, 
nor had he such insight into the rights of the people 
as Jefferson, nor yet had he such confidence in them. 
Besides, Adams was capricious, and in the most criti- 
12 



178 JOHN ADAMS. 

cal period of the Revolution, while chairman of the 
Board of War, he absented himself from Congress 
nearly four months, from October 13, 1776, to 
February 9, 1777 — a period full of terrible defeats, 
though enlightened by the brilliant actions at Tren- 
ton and Princeton. He was not conciliatory in word 
or deed. 

He left Congress on the 11th of November, 1777, 
and returned home. While a member of Congress, 
he was at the same time one of the Selectmen of the 
town of Braintree, and successively a member of the 
General Court and of a Council of his native State, 
and was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Massachusetts, October, 28, 1775.* He 
accepted the office though he never entered on its 
duties or received any salary. He wrote an admi- 
rable Proclamation to the People of his State, full 
of sound principles of Government, and addressing 
itself to the nobler emotions of Humanity, f In the 
newspapers of Boston he also wrote some able pa- 
pers in defence of the Rights of the Colonists. But 
the most valuable document he wrote in this period 
of his life was his " Thoughts on Government," pub- 
lished in 1776 — a work which seems to have had 
much influence upon the Forms of Government 
which the Colonies adopted. J 

* "Works, iii. 23. f Works, i. 191, and onward. 

X "Works, iv. 183-209. See the other references in the Index at 
end of volume x. 



JOHN ADAMS. 179 



IV. 

Mr. Adams's Career as a Politician and Diplo- 
matist in Europe. 1778-1787. 

In November, 1777, while Mr. Adams, a member 
of Congress, but absent on leave, was arguing a 

cause in the Admiralty Court at Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire, he was told by a friend that he 
(.Mr. Adams) was appointed one of the Commis- 
sioners to France, in place of Silas Deane, whose 
conduct forced Congress to recall him. James 
Lovell, one of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
wrote him, " We want one man of inflexible in- 
tegrity on the Embassy." * To accept the office 
was to risk great difficulty and danger. The 
chance of capture in crossing the ocean, and of 
living for a long time shut up in the Tower as a 
Rebel, was great. The payment was little for a 
poor man with a large family. But it opened a 
wide field for his ambition, and what was still 
more with him, Duty said, "Go," and he went.f 
He left home 13th of February, 1778, and reached 
Paris, April 8. But the Commercial Treaty and 
Alliance between France and America had been 
skilfully made before he reached there. He found 
American affairs in no little confusion, and a great 

* Works, i. 275. t Works, iii. 89. 



180 JOHN ADAMS. 

deal of quarrelling among the agents — Deane, 
Franklin, Izard, and the two Lees, lie hastened 
to bring matters to better order, and partly suc- 
ceeded. A new disposition of diplomatic offices 
was made. Franklin became sole Minister to 
France, and Adams, thus left without place or 
dnl}-, soon returned home. lie reached Boston, 
August 2, 1779 ; the next week was elected a 
delegate for Braintree to the Convention presently 
to assemble, and to form the Constitution of Mas- 
sachusetts. It met at Cambridge, September 1, 
1770, and immediately resolved that they would 
proceed "to establish a free Republic," and that the 
principle of it should be, "The Government of a 
People* by fixed laws of their own making." A 
Committee of thirty-one was chosen to draft a 
Constitution. They chose a sub-committee of five 
to do the work, and i\\a<v five delegated it to Mr. 
Adams. There were already two parties in the 
new State — a party of Property, represented by 
James Bowdoin, who could not go to Congr 
because he had great riches; and a party of Per- 
sons, represented by Samuel Adams, who had done 
more than any one man to consummate the ideas 
of the New England leaders, and to advance the 
progress of Revolution. John Adams stood be- 
tween these two parties, desiring to give a due 
share both to money and to numbers. He drafted 



JOHN ADAMS. 181 

the first Constitution of Massachusetts. It was not 
greatly altered in the large committee, or in the 
Convention. lie also took the most prominent part 
in forming the Political Institutions of Massachu- 
setts, and so lie influenced the forms of Govern- 
ment of all the many States which have since copied 
its provisions. I think this was one of the most 
important acts of his life.* 

I Jut he never sat in the Convention ; for before 
it reassembled, in October, he had been appointed 
one of the Ministers to treat with Great Britain, 
and to negotiate, first, a Treaty of Peace, and, sec- 
ond, a Treaty of Commerce. Attended by his oldest 
son, — John Quincy Adams, then only promising 
what he afterwards so successfully performed, — he 
sailed for Europe, November 13, 1779, and reached 
Paris (via Spain), February 5, 1780. He had a dis- 
agreement with iJr. Franklin, then Minister at Paris, 
and with the Cointe de Vergennes, the actual Chief 
of the French Government under Louis the Six- 
teenth. He could not proceed to England, and 
Vergennes advised him not to announce the fact of 
his approach to the British Court till a more favor- 
able opportunity should occur. He was greatly irri- 
tated at this, and seems to have disturbed the affairs 
that he was sent to compose, lie wrote important 
articles on America, and had them published in the 

* Works, i. 284 ; iv. 213-219. 



182 JOHN ADAMS. 

semi-official Journal — the "Mercure de France." 
A mutual animosity between Adams and Vergennes 
continued during all his residence in France, not well 
founded on either side.* 

July 27, 1780, he went to Holland, to ascertain if 
he could borrow money for the United States. His 
hopeful mind made things look more promising than 
he afterwards found them to be. He had important 
articles published in the Du>tch journals, giving in- 
formation respecting American affairs, artfully get- 
ting some of them first published in London. Pie 
wrote a work, then published for the first time, but 
often afterwards, entitled, "Twenty-six Letters upon 
interesting Subjects respecting the Revolution of 
America." f They were admirably suited to the 
time and place, and greatly helped the cause of 
America. He informed the Dutch Government, 
January 1, 1781 , J of his appointment as Minister 
Plenipotentiary to their Court, and presented them 
a memorial, asking to be recognized as such. As 
they were slow to respond to his claim, he appealed 
to the Dutch people, and. had his memorial widely 
circulated among them. Strange as it may seem, 
this extraordinary appeal succeeded. The Indepen- 
dent Provinces, one by one, demanded his reception, 
and on the 19th of April, 1782, the authorities voted 

* Works, i. 298, 312, 321, 334. f Works, vii. 265. 

t Works, i. 333. 



JOHN ADAMS. 183 

that he bo recognized as Minister Plenipotentiary 
from the United States of America. The Govern- 
ment at first was hostile to him, for Holland was 
under English influence, and A:/ 1 us frankly ac- 
knowledged this as the greatest success of his life. 
Soon after he procured a loan of about two millions 
of dollars, and subsequently yet others, which were 
of the greatest service at a time when the United 
States could get no more credits from France.* 
Still further, he negotiated a treaty of Amity and 
Commerce between the United States and Holland, 
October 7, 1782. f In the mean time, July, 1781, 
at Paris, he had taken part in the negotiations for 
Peace with Great Britain, under the mediation of 
Austria and Russia, but it all came to nothing. 
After finishing his admirable successes in Holland, 
October 26, 1782, he is again at Paris, with Franklin 
and Jay, to negotiate a definitive treat} r of peace be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States. It was 
a long and difficult matter, full of complication and 
confusion. Both Franklin and Jay had great tal- 
ents — Franklin a genius for diplomacy, furnished 
with more than twenty years of experience at Euro- 
pean Courts during times of the greatest trial. ' But 
it must be confessed that the quick, wide-seeing in- 
telligence of John Adams — his energy, his boldness, 
and his irresistible will — were of great service in 

* Works, i. 340. t Works, i. 350-352. 



184 JOHN ADAMS. 

securing tlio Rights of America in that negotiation. 
On 30th November, 1782, the treaty was signed with- 
out the knowledge of the French Court. The French 
Government had been so treacherous, that the Amer- 
ican Commissioners departed from their instructions 
from Congress, and finished the treaty without the 
knowledge of the Comte de Vergenncs. June 21, 
1783, it was signed by the authorities of France, 
England, and America, and Peace was definitively 
restored.* Mr. Adams resigned his offices, hoping to 
return home; but Congress appointed him, with 
Franklin and Jay, Commissioner to negotiate a 
Treaty of Commerce with Great Britain. 

Exhausted by labor and racked by a fever, Adams 
went to England in a private capacity, and was ad- 
mitted to the House of Lords as the "Friend of Lord 
Mansfield." The next day some one said to him, 
" How short a time since I heard that same Lord 
Mansfield say, in that same House of Lords, c My 
Lords, if you do not kill him (Mr. Adams), he will 
kill you'?" Mr. West, the American painter, said 
this "scene would make one of the finest paintings in 
the progress of American Independence." In the 
winter, he hurried over to Holland, to negotiate a 
new loan, and succeeded in the midst of difficulties, 
caused by the rashness or dishonesty of the American 

* Works, i. 386-398. 



JOHN ADAMS. 185 

Government in recklessly overdrawing their credits 
on Holland.* 

He assisted m making other treaties with Sweden 
and with Prussia, the latter being the celebrated one, 
which docs such honor to Dr. Franklin. Adams con- 
tinued to live in the neighborhood of Paris, where his 
wife and family joined him in the summer of 1784. 
Here he passed, perhaps, the happiest period of his 
life. John Quincy Adams, a promising lad of 
teen, now and then shows himself in the formal Ict- 
of his father and mother. But halcyon days are 
i'(^w. February 25, 1785, he was appointed Envoy 
to Great Britain. Vergennes said to him, "It 
great thing to be an ambassador from your country 
to the country you sprang from. It is a mark ! " 
The Duke of Dorset said, "You will be much stai 
at." In May, he went to London as Minister. He 
presented to the King in his closet; only Lord 
rmarthen was present. Adams made the three 
reverences, and said, "I think myself more fortunate 
than all my fellow-citizens, in having the, distin- 
guished honor to be the first to stand in your .Majes- 
ty's royal presence in a diplomatic character." The 
King said, "I was the last to consent to separation, 
but I will be the first to meet the friendship of the 
United States as an independent power." Both v. 

* Works, i. 413, 414. 



186 JOHN ADAMS. 

greatly moved, the King the most. In conversa- 
tion afterwards, the King told him he understood he 
was not much attached to the maimers of France. 
Adams smartly answered, " I have no attachment but 
to my country ; " whereto the King replied, as quick 
as lightning, "An honest man will never have any 
other ! " * But this interview did not prevent the 
King from publicly turning his back on the American 
Commissioners, Adams and Jefferson ! Whereupon 
all respectability turned its pliant back. 

Adams's condition in England was unhappy. Amer- 
ica was treated as rebellious, and despised for her 
weakness ; shall I not also say, for the dishonorable 
manner in which the Americans refused to pay their 
debts. He met with cold and formal civility, " such 
as only the English know how, in perfection, to make 
offensive." "No marked offence, but supercilious 
indifference ! " No treaty of Commerce could then 
be made. The King was cold, his family cold, the 
courtiers cold, all respectability cold : only a few Dis- 
senters and Democrats were on his side. The British 
appointed no Minister to America. Adams resigned 
his office, and came home in 1788. But before he 
left England, he published an important work, — his 
" Defence of the American Constitution," — which 
had a good deal of influence throughout the United 
States. 

* Works, i. 419 ; viii. 256. 



JOHN ADAMS. 187 



V. 

Mr. Adams in the Executive of the United 

States. 1787-1800. 

Mr. Adams left America in the dark hoars of 1779. 
All was then uncertain. America misrht fail in con- 
tending with her o-i^antic foe. He came back in 
a cloudy day of 1788 ; it might turn out to be a 
stormy one. For though the foreign foe was over- 
come, the domestic trouble from ourselves was by 
no means so easily disposed of. Property and per- 
sons were less safe in the States after the Peace, than 
in the five years before the outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion. The States were not so prosperous as the 
Colonies. The Provisional Government which had 
carried the Country through the Revolution was fall- 
ing to pieces. The new Federal Government was 
not yet established. One by one the States, led by 
reluctant Massachusetts, tardily gave in their consent 
to a form of National Government. The Federal 
Constitution then offered to the People of America 
for their adoption was the work of the merchants in 
the seaports, of the Southern planters, of the officers 
of the Revolution, of the Government officials, of the 
men of superior education, and of the prosperous 
classes in general. Shays' rebellion in Massachu- 
setts frightened men who had the most intense clemo- 



188 JOHN ADAMS. 

cratic hostility to centralized power. So some of 
them assented to the New Constitution. Madison, 
Jefferson, Hancock, and Samuel Adams were types 
of this class. But many were hostile to it. Had it 
been put to a popular vote six months after the Con- 
vention adjourned, not a State, I think, had adopted 
the Constitution. 

Great events march through crates which turn on 
little hinges. Upon Mr. Adams's return, the Consti- 
tution was adopted ; a new Government organized. 

The great officers were first to be chosen, Presi- 
dent and Vice-President. There could be but one 
candidate for the highest place. Washington had all 
the sixty-nine Electoral, votes. No doubt he should 
be the "first man in the Nation. But the second 
would be a long way behind him. There were ten 
other competitors in the field. Mr. Adams had thir- 
ty-four votes ; thirty-five were against him. He was 
elected Vice-President by a minority of votes. His 
most conspicuous rivals were Samuel Adams and 
John Hancock. But Alexander Hamilton was his 
chief opponent, and worked against him in his astute 
and secret way. The motives of Hamilton's conduct 
at this election are not yet quite apparent. 

When John Adams took his oath of office, 21st 
April, 1789, it was not a bright sky that hung over 
him. He was not a member of the Cabinet. It was 
his office to preside in the Senate. That consisted 



JOHN ADAMS. 189 

of twenty-two members, though only twenty were 
usually present. When that body was equally di- 
vided, which happened twenty times during the two 
years of the first Congress, he gave the casting vote. 
It was always then in favor of Washington's Ad- 
ministration, and the measures supported by the 
Federal party. He took sides with England, and not 
with France. But in the dull life of a Vice-Presi- 
delrt he found no scope for his special talents, which 
were power in debate and firmness in execution. 
Eight years this unhappy Theseus sat in the chair of 
the Senate, deciding points of order, and now and 
then giving a casting vote. Silence, calmness, im- 
partiality, were chiefly required for that office. They 
were not his shining talents. He called his -"the 
most insignificant office that ever the invention of 
man contrived, or his imagination conceived." * In 
a period of great excitement, 1789, he wrote the 
"Davila" papers, once read with intense wrath, and 
with unlimited delight, now dead, cold, neglected, 
and forgotten. Yet these writings were his most im- 
portant contributions to the public service between 
1789 and 1797. 

He disliked two men, the most powerful in Wash- 
ington's Cabinet; nay, he hated them! Jefferson, 
the Democrat, and Hamilton, the Federalist. But 
while he was Vice-President, he secured the friendly 

* Works, i. 460. 



190 JOHN ADAMS. 

regards of both parties in the Senate, notwithstaud- 
ing those stormy times. 

When Washington withdrew from public office, 
Adams was the only man deemed by the Federal 
party fit to be elected President. But some of the 
Federalists, who were leading men in their party, 
thought that the British Government, with all its 
complicated establishments, was the best government 
that there was in the world, or that there ever would 
be. These men did not trust Mr. Adams, because 
his more transcendental theories of government dis- 
pleased them. Hamilton, his old enemy, now worked 
in secret, and attempted to thrust him aside, while 
his great and more magnanimous opponent, Jeffer- 
son, appeared in open day — as a rival rather than 
as a foe. Adams had seventy-one votes, Jefferson 
had sixty-eight. So Adams was President and Jef- 
ferson Vice-President. Adams was much chagrined 
at his meagre majority, only one vote more than the 
bare number which the law required. He called 
himself a " President of three votes." He was sworn 
into the office on the 4th of March, 1797. Thirty-one 
years before, on that day, he entered on his duty as 
one of the honorable Selectmen of Braintree ! There 
was now a less pleasant prospect before him. The 
retirement of Washington took away the last check 
which had curbed the frenzy of Federalists and 
Democrats. 



JOHN ADAMS. 191 

On the day when he became Vice-President, and so, 
as chairman of the Senate, was obliged to declare his 
own election to the great office, his wife characteris- 
tically wrote him from her New England home, — 

" ' The sun is dressed in brightest beams, 
To give thy honors to the day.' 

"My thoughts and meditations are with you, and 
my petitions to Heaven are that f the things which 
make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes.' 
My feelings are not those of pride or ostentation 
upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense 
of the obligations, the important trusts, and numer- 
ous duties connected with it. That you may be 
enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, 
with justice and impartiality to your country, and 
with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the 
daily prayer of your A. A." * 

His position was exceedingly difficult. 

I. The great strife between Federalists and Demo- 
crats was then at its height, while at the same time 
the wars in Europe roused the passions of all Amer- 
icans, who fiercely took sides and embraced opposite 
opinions. The Democrats, however, were to triumph 
in the end. Nothing but reverence for Washington 

* Works, i. 496. 



192 JOHN ADAMS. 

sustained the Federal party during the first four 
years, under the new Constitution. But Washington 
had now withdrawn, and to weaken yet more the 
Conservative cause, the Federalists had not entire 
confidence in Adams. 

II. By his relation to his party, he felt bound to 
accept the feeble Cabinet which Washington had left 
in power : Pickering and Wolcott from New Eng- 
land, McHenry from New Jersey, and Charles Lee 
from Virginia. They had no hold on the country. 
By great services or great talent, they could give 
Adams no moral or political support. They were 
only qualified to conduct the routine of office, and to 
superintend official work. 

III. These old officials felt no obligation to 
Adams, and bore no allegiance to him. Three of 
them were Hamilton's men, by him selected for Gen- 
eral Washington, who had a misplaced confidence 
in Hamilton. Adams's Cabinet originally looked 
to Hamilton as their master and chief, not to the 
actual President. Their writings prove this. Adams 
wished to be President of the Nation. He found it 
impossible, because his Cabinet insisted that he should 
be President only of the Federal Party. 

The chief acts of Adams's administration are briefly 
told. The French, in the fury of the Revolution, be- 
came hostile to America ; treated our Ministers with 
contempt, ordering them out of their territory, plun- 



JOHN ADAMS. 193 

deringour ships, and through their agents violating the 
sovereignty of our soil. There was danger of a war 
with France, and so it became necessary that the Na- 
tion should be put in a state of defence. The Ultra- 
Federalists wanted a war with France, and to com- 
promise their differences with England. But the 
chief Democrats favored France, and hated England, 
to an extraordinary degree. Adams, who was now 
the slave of a party, wished to act purely on the de- 
fensive. He broke with his Cabinet on the question 
of the command of the new army. All were agreed 
that Washington should be General-in-Chief. The 
Cabinet desired that Hamilton should be second in 
rank. Such was the ambitious claim of Hamilton 
himself; and Washington quietly favored it. Adams 
wished to commission Knox or Pickering. After 
much contention, Adams yielded to Washington, but 
not graciously. 

The French Court had rejected the American Min- 
ister. A most respectable commission, Mr. Marshall, 
Mr. Pickering, and Mr. Gerry, were sent out to set- 
tle affairs. They, too, were treated with equal dis- 
dain. In a message to Congress, 21st of June, 1798, 
Mr. Adams said, " I will never send another Minister 
to France without assurance that he will be received, 
respected, and honored as the representative of a 
great, free, powerful, and independent nation." * 

* Works, i. 519. 

13 



194 JOHN ADAMS. 

War seemed unavoidable. The Nation armed itself, 
and made ready for fight. The Dutch offered to me- 
diate.* The French agent advised Mr. Murray, our 
Minister at the Hague, that if the Americans should 
send a new envoy, he would be " received as the 
representative of a great, free, powerful, and inde- 
pendent nation." Should Adams refuse the offer? 
That were indeed madness. Should he consult his 
Cabinet? They were all in favor of war, and would 
betray the measure to other Federalists. They 
might, and probably would, defeat the peaceful 
policy he had determined to pursue. He took the 
responsibility upon himself, and on the 18th of Feb- 
ruary, 1799, he sent a message to the Senate, nomi- 
nating Mr. William Vans Murray Minister to France, 
at the same time transmitting the despatch of Talley- 
rand, promising that France would receive an envoy 
from America. "Is Mr. Adams mad?" asked a 
Federal Senator of Mr. Pickering. The Federalists 
were indignant. The Senate committee on the nom- 
ination sought an interview ; but they found the 
President as inflexible as the granite of his own 
native hills. He added Mr. Ellsworth and Patrick 
Henry to the commission. The Senate confirmed the 
nominations, but as Henry declined, George Davie, 
of North Carolina, was put in his place. 

* The French Government assumed a milder tone. They wished 
for reconciliation with America. 



JOHN ADAMS. 195 

This was one of the great acts of his life ; no public 
deed cost him more courage. It saved the nation from 

CD 

a war, but it purchased for Adams the hatred of his 
party, at least of its controlling and most ambitious 
men. Though wisdom may ride in one pannier, the 
other is often heavy with folly. After this great 
deed, on March 10, 1799, Adams retired to his home 
at Quincy for more than seven months,* abandoning 
the Government to his faithless Cabinet ; only occa- 
sionally corresponding with his Secretaries upon such 
matters as were submitted to him. He had after- 
wards much cause to repent that he had not during 
this period remained at the seat of Government, 
and in the control of its Executive affairs. 

The Alien and Sedition Laws, so deservedly hateful 
to Americans, were the measures not of himself, but 
of his party. He assented to them, and so his was 
the blame; but he never liked them, and pardoned 
John Fries, the first man ever tried for treason 
against the United States, if indeed he could be said 
to have been tried at all. This again brought on 
Adams the wrath of his Cabinet and of the leading 
men of his party. 

Such, at last, became the discrepancy between him 
and his Cabinet, that he removed the chief men from 
office, filling their places with others of a different 

* Works, viii. 628, et seq. ; also, ix. 87; Gibbs, "Administra- 
tions," ii. 248. 



196 JOHN ADAMS. 

stamp. He settled some complicated difficulties 
with both England and France. But his party was 
displeased with him. Some of them — Hamilton and 
others — sought to destroy him. 

He was beaten at the next election. Jefferson was 
chosen President in his place. This was the great 
grief aud sorrow of his life. He took what ven- 
geance he could on his triumphant rival — once his 
intimate friend. Just as he was leaving office he filled 
up many new judicial appointments, then recently 
created by act of Congress. These were called the 
appointments of "the Midnight Judges," from the 
commissions of some of them having been made at 
nine o'clock on the evening of the 3d March, 1801, 
while, as it was then considered, his Presidency was 
to cease at midnight of that date. On the 4th 
March, before sunrise, he left the seat of Govern- 
ment, his feelings not suffering him to attend the 
inauguration of his Democratic successor ! Private 
grief, also, for the recent death of a son, lay heavy 
on his heart,* with his great political defeat. 

* Works, ix. 581. 



JOHN ADAMS. 197 



VI. 

The Ex-Phesident in Private Life. From 4th 
March, 1801, to 4th July, 1826. 

Crushed with shame, and filled alike with grief 
and indignation, Mr. Adams went home to his 
farm at Quincy, passing at once from the most in- 
tense activity of mind to the dull existence of a 
country gentleman in a little town. On the last year 
of office his letters came to him by thousands. The 
next, out of office, there were hardly a hundred. 
His franking privilege seemed to be all his visible 
record for five and twenty years of earnest public 
toil. He who so proudly 

" Once trod the ways of glory, 
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor," 

now finds all men desert him when the mantle of 
Presidential power fell off. 

"Love ends with hope; the sinking Statesman's door 
Lets in the crowd of worshippers no more." 

But dear old Massachusetts would not desert her 
son, faithful and yet dishonored. The Legislature 
sent him, for his past services, their thanks, in an 
address sincere, beautiful, and affectionate. It was 
a noble act of his native State, which he had done so 
much to illustrate and to protect. It touched the 



198 JOHN ADAMS. 

sad old man's always thankful heart, and he found 
the final applauses of his State " more grateful than 
any which had preceded them." The farmers and 
mechanics of the town of Quincy honored his next 
birthday, cheering him with words of endearment, 
where words of consolation might not have availed. 

The remaining twenty-five years of his life he de- 
voted to farming, always his favorite employment ; 
to political writing upon his own conduct, or upon 
the topics of the day ; to literature, and to corre- 
sponding with his friends, who really prized him 
in power or in disgrace. With the exception of 
his letters, — historical, literary, and philosophic, — 
his writings at this period do him no honor. They 
are marked by partisan rage and by personal ha- 
tred. The world has forgotten them. Let us not 
call them from their appropriate tomb. 

His wife died on the 28th of October, 1818. 
Fifty-four years and three days had they lived to- 
gether, a blameless and beautiful wedlock, blessed 
with three sons and a daughter. He was eighty- 
three, and ever after wore a tinge of unaffected sad- 
ness. The sprightly humor vanished from his letters 
and his talk. How could he be cheerful when the 
Sun of his early being shone on him only from an- 
other Home, so near and yet so far and separate ! 

In 1820 Massachusetts found it needful to revise 
the Constitution which he had chiefly drafted in 



JOHN ADAMS. 199 

1779. Eighty-five years old, his native town sent 
him a delegate to this Convention, as they had done 
to the other one, forty years before. He was chosen 
its President, — a fit honor, which the feeble old man 
as fittingly declined. What a change from the time 
when it seemed radical to demand that writs, title- 
deeds, and commissions should run in the name 
of the State; that is, of the People, and not in that 
of the King. In the Convention of 1820 Adams 
appeared a little more conservative than in that of 
1779. The man at eighty-five is more timid than 
at five and forty. But in one thing he was more 
venturesome, younger, mid more progressive than his 
fellows. He demanded perfect religious freedom, not 
only for Christians, but for non-Christians and anti- 
Christians. All men should be equal before the law. 
The State should not be Christian, but Human, as 
Jesus himself was. Puritanic bigotry was then too 
strong for the old man. The time came, and Mas- 
sachusetts did what he had wished, thirty or forty 
years afterwards. 

Able-bodied, able-minded, Mr. Adams gradually 
faded away. His hearing decayed, his eyes failed 
him, his hands were tremulous ; but still the brave 
old soul held on, making the most of the wreck of 
life, now drifting alone to the Islands of the Blessed. 
Independence Day, the great day of his life, drew 
near. It was its fiftieth anniversary. The Nation 



200 JOHN ADAMS. 

was to keep its solemn Jubilee, grateful alike to God 
and to His servants here below, for the blessings of 
the smiling and happy land. A few clays before the 
time, the town orator asked him for a "sentiment" 
to suit the approaching occasion. The old man, in 
his ninety-first year, infirm, feeble, and mortally sick 
in his bed, answered, "INDEPENDENCE FOR- 
EVER ! " The day came, and found him living, but 
fast losing his hold upon earth. " Thomas Jeflferson 
still survives," said the old man— his coadjutor and 
his rival, yet his friend. These were his last words. 
Soon after, while the land rang with cannons jubilant 
over his great deed, he passed onward, and ceased 
to be mortal. Jeflferson had gone an hour or two 
before. How fortunate the occasion of his death ! 
His son was then the President of this mighty Na- 
tion ; and on its fiftieth birthday, calmly, quietly, he 
shook oflf the worn-out body, and, following his senti- 
ment, went forth to " Independence forever ! " 

II. Look next at his character, and consider its 
four elements — the Intellectual, Moral, Aflfectional, 
and Religious. 

I. Mr. Adams had a great mind, quick, compre- 
hensive, analytical, not easily satisfied save with ulti- 
mate causes, tenacious also of its treasures. His 
memory did not fail until he was old. With the 
exception of Dr. Franklin, I think of no American 



JOHN ADAMS. 201 

politician in the eighteenth century that was his in- 
tellectual superior. For though Hamilton and Jef- 
ferson, nay, Jay and Madison and Marshall sur- 
passed him in some high qualities, yet no one of 
them seems to have been quite his equal on the 
whole. He was eminent in all the three depart- 
ments of the Intellect — the Understanding, the 
practical power; the Imagination, the poetic pow- 
er, and the Reason, the philosophic power. 

First. His understanding was ample. Though he 
was constitutionally averse to regular, severe, and 
long-continued attention, he yet easily mastered what 
lay before him, and reproduced it fluently when oc- 
casion required. He gathered a great amount of 
worldly knowledge, for he was a sharp observer of 
human affairs, if not a nice one. Yet he attended 
little to the world of matter, except for the economic 
purposes of Agriculture, or the enjoyment of its visi- 
ble beauty. It is only when he is stimulated by the 
great mind of Franklin that he gives any attention to 
the investigations of Science. 

At the age of forty he was the ablest lawyer in New 
England, perhaps the ablest lawyer in America. He 
was the most learned in historic legal lore, the most 
profound in the study of first principles. Pie went to 
the fountains of English Law, and did not disdain to 
follow the stream in all its crooked and self-contra- 
dictory course. He had a more complete collection 



202 JOHN ADAMS. 

of law books than any man in New England, and so 
both puzzled and defeated the officers of the Crown 
with whom he contended. He was exceedingly well 
read, for that time and place, in the Roman Law, 
the Law of Nature, and the Law of Nations ; and 
also well versed in Politics and in Morals. He had 
read much in the histories of Greece and Rome, 
and had some acquaintance with a few of their great 
writers, though never an accomplished classic scholar. 
He was quite familiar with the practical affairs of 
New England life. 

His first opinion was often faulty, not seldom ut- 
terly wrong ; but his final thought was commonly deep 
and just respecting the true nature of things. Hence, 
in spite of great defects, he was a man not only of 
instinctive sagacity, but also of sound judgment. 
In respect to this he has not received justice. All 
the great acts of his life, — the defence of Captain 
Preston, the denial that the British Parliament had 
any right by English law to rule these Colonies, the 
appointment of Washington as General, Command- 
ing-in-Chief, the Declaration of Independence, the 
sending of a Commission to France in 1798, — all 
these things indicate the soundest of human judg- 
ment. But he lacked method in his intellectual pro- 
cesses. He had not the genius which is its own 
method, nor yet that sober, systematic habit of work, 
which, though seemingly slow, is, in the long run, so 



v adj 203 

swift and sure. He did things helter-skelter. In 
his administration as President he had no rule for 
anything. 

3 icond. He had a good fair Imagination, above 
the average of educated men. Yet his Imagination 

not equal to his Understanding. U . it had 

small opportunity for early culture, or even for ; 
dental education in later life, lie had more fondi. 
for the beauty of Nature, and even of Art, than I find 
in his eminent political contemporari He was 

fond of music, of sculpture, and painting, and took 
delight in the grand of European Architecture, 

which so astonish an American. His larger work — ■ 

controversial writings, his political papers — are 
plain to dire homeliness; but his letters to his few 
intimates, and especially to his wife, are charged with 
wild flowers of wit, humor, and fancy, which spread 
a cheering light on the grim landscape which expands 
all around. 

Third. He had a great Reason, though its culture 

greatly defective, and tin d capricious and 

in. had not calm], no ugh to be a 

X philosopher, yet always looked for the actual 
causes of things, and studied carefully their modes 
of operation. This philosophic, metaphysical ten- 
dency appears in most of his deliberate writi. 
which always relate to political affairs. He is bold 
in his abstract speculation, always founding his work 



204 -JOHN ADAMS. 

on the ultimate principles of Nature. lie is often 
profound in his remarks. Thus, in 1765, he speaks 
of "Rights derived from the great Legislator of the 
universe, — Rights that cannot be repealed or rc- 
strained by human laws; they arq antecedent to all 
earthly government."* "Rulers are no more Hum 
attorneys, agents, and trustees for the people; the 
people have a right to revoke the authority that they 
themselves have delegated, and to constitute abler 
and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. The 
preservation of the means of knowledge among the 
lowest ranks is of more importance to the public 
than all the property of all the rich men in the 
country." f 

The Declaration of Grievances, which he wrote in 
1774, contains many profound thoughts, partly his 
own, partly the work of James Otis and Samuel 
Adams. His " Thoughts on Government " J is the 
finest specimen of his political writing. As it should 
be, his "Plan" was borrowed from existing institu- 
tions; but it proves a careful observation of their 
effects, and a profound investigation of the causes of 
political welfare. His " Defence " § of the American 

* Works, iii. 449. 

t Works, iii. 457. On the Canon and Feudal Laws. A more frag- 
ment, written by him at the age of twenty-nine, irregular and insuffi- 
cient, but of great value at the time, 17C5, not unprofitable now. 

X Works, iv. 189. § Works, iv. and v. 



JOHN ADAMS. 205 

Constitutions is less valuable, and contains many hasty 
generalizations, which experience has not confirmed, 
nor did history warrant them. He appeals from Un- 
man History to Human Nature; from the Actual of 
Establishment to the Ideal Right of Humanity. 

Adams certainly had not a mind of the highest 
class. If he were the first American of that age 
after Franklin, he was second to him by a long in- 
terval, and several competitors stood nearly as high 
as he did. UnWke Franklin and Washington, he was 
not a man of well-balanced intellect or of self-con- 
trolled temper. 

Thus constituted, he was an Inventor; but he was 
not a great Inventor. He was often in advance 
of his times, especially in his Plan of Government, 
his scheme of Universal Toleration, making a Chris- 
tian Humanity to constitute all men as equals before 
the State. His Christian Commonwealth, like the 
Kingdom of Heaven, was to grant no privilege to 
Christians, but to secure justice to all Mankind. 

He ran before the foremost of his time in seeing 
the Nation's necessity of a Navy and of a Military 
Academy. He required them in 1779, he founded 
them in 1799. 

As an Organizer, he could deal with political 
ideas, constructing them into a Constitution. He 
could plan a Government with masterly skill. But 



206 JOHN ADAMS. 

he had only the smallest talent for organizing men. 
He was always a lawyer, who could shape his prin- 
ciples into a measure. Here he had few equals ; but 
he was never a practical politician, who could organ- 
ize men about his idea, so that they should defend his 
measures and adopt his thoughts and conclusions. 
Thus many ran before him, and hence came the great 
failure of his political life. He could construct In- 
stitutions, but he could .not srovern men. 

Pie was not a good Administrator, except in his 
own private affairs, where, perhaps, his wife was the 
presiding spirit. He had no system, but was gov- 
erned by the enthusiasm of the moment.* In the 
most important matter he went to work fluently, 
often with haste and without good heed. In diploma- 
cy, at Paris, 1780, he ran violently down steep places, 
careless whom he ran over or what he ran against. 
In 1798 he took the lead in appointing Washington 
Commander-in-Chief of the army without consult- 
ing him beforehand,f and quarrelled with him about 
the appointment of officers. J 

He acted often from personal whim and caprice, 
and in a time of great political crisis, in 1799, left 

* Jefferson's Writings, ix. 186. 

f Sparks's Washington, xi. 304. See, also, Washington's letter to 
McHenry. xi. 574. He never corresponded with Washington after 
April 5, 1798, xi. 198. 

% Sparks's Washington, xi. 419, 420. 



JOHN ADAMS. 207 

the scat of Government, and went home to Quincy 
to stay for many months. 

Hence he was not a skilful diplomatist abroad. 
When Vice-President, Washington doubted if he was 
fit for a foreign mission.* His administration as 
President was not peaceful or prosperous. He could 
not administer the Nation well, nor even manage his 
own party. Yet it must be confessed that he won a 
great diplomatic victory in Holland, and was called the 
" Washington of Negotiation," and, while President, 
successfully settled difficult questions with France 
and England. I give the rule and the exceptions. 

II. Mr. Adams had great moral virtues, also great 
vices. Able-bodied, compact, and vigorous, though 
not always healthy, he had abundant physical cour- 
age. In scholarly men this is a great and a rare 
virtue. He says he meant to have been a soldier, and 
always had doubted whether he should have been a 
hero or a coward. He needed not to doubt. No 
drop of coward blood ran in his impetuous veins. He 
inherited "spunk," and transmitted it too. 

He had moral courage in the heroic degree. He 
could not only face the bullets of a British man-of- 
War, but face the Royal Government of Massachu- 
setts in 1765, all through the ante-revolutionary 
period. Nay, he could front the wrath of his own 

* Jefferson's Works, ix. 206. 



208 JOHN ADAMS. 

friends and the whole town, and defend Captain 
Preston in 1770. He could face the indignation of 
the leaders of the Federal party in 1799. Let him 
be sure he was right, and he feared nothing but to 
be false to Eight. When the Massachusetts Judges 
went under the golden chain of Britain in 1773, and 
the Government held it low to make them stoop 
the more lowly ; when the precedent-loving lawyers 
knew not what to do, Adams said, "Impeach the 
Judges ; "' and the Court did no more business.* 
Conscious of great integrity he did not hesitate to 
take great risks, and also to accept great responsi- 
bility. 

He says he had four great trials in his life. 

The first came from Captain Preston's case in 
1770. The popular voice said, "Hang the. authors 
of the Boston Massacre ! " Adams's conscience said, 
" Defend them ; give them a free trial ! " His friends 
said, "If you save them, you ruin yourself ! " But 
Adams was John Adams, and he did his duty, saving 
the lives of the soldiers, and the virtuous reputation 
of Massachusetts. 

On the 24th July, 1775, he wrote two private let- 
ters for Congress, which fell into the hands of the 
British, and were published. In one of these he 
recommends Disunion, Independence, concentration 
of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial powers 

* Works, x. 237, et al. 



JOHN ADAMS. 209 

of the whole Continent, a Navy, and seizure of the 
Tories. Hateful doctrines these to all but a minor- 
ity of the Congress. Besides, he spoke of John Dick- 
inson of Pennsylvania, then a chief political favorite, 
in terms of exquisite contempt. The doubtful mem- 
bers of Congress looked at him with wrath. Mr. 
Dickinson passed him without recognition in the 
street. He bore it patiently, and waited for his 
time.* 

In 1781, while minister to Holland, the Gov- 
ernment delayed to acknowledge him as Minister. 
Others said, " Wait." He appealed to the Dutch 
people, who compelled their High Mightinesses to 
receive him, and so this bold and unprecedented 
diplomacy f turned out to be a great success. 

In 1798, his Cabinet, the Federal party, and 
even Washington, said, " Send no Minister to 
France." Adams took the responsibility on him- 
self; did not consult his hostile and treacherous 
Cabinet, but sent the Minister, and so broke the 
cloud of war which hung dark and fearful over 
the land and sea.i These four <rreat trials — he 
came out of them all, clean and pure as he went in. 

He was a conscientious man, and sought counsel 
of that still small voice, which tells the law of the 
mind, the Eternal Right, to whoso listens. He 

* Works, i. 178, 183. t Works, i. 349, et al. 

t Works, i. 536-543. 

14 



210 JOHN ADAMS. 

could not understand that the Kind's will was to 
govern the conscience of a subject.* He had clear 
perception of justice, was veracious and outspoken, 
had an utter hatred of lies, of dissembling, and gen- 
erally of hypocrisy in any form. He was terribly 
open, earnest, and direct, and could not keep his 
mouth shut. He knew this. Once he went with 
others to see the picture of Washington in Faneuii 
Hall. Some one remarked on the firm mouth, and 
said, "It looks as if he could keep it shut." "So 
he did," said Adams ; but tapping with his cane his 
own bust, which the town of Boston had also placed 
in Faneuii Hall, he added, "that d — d fool never 
could." He hated all stratagems and tricks, and 
growled about the slow, noiseless way in which old, 
experienced Dr. Franklin threw out his lines, and 
drew in the treasures of the treacherous political 
deep. "Diplomacy is a silent art," and Adams was 
a talker. A man of deepest integrity, he could not 
dissemble, but wore his heart upon his sleeve. He 
had no reseiwe. His early rule was never to de- 
ceive the People, nor to conceal from them any 
truth essential to their welfare. f He observed this 
as a maxim all his life. He had great moral deli- 
cacy, and, being President, doubted if he ought to 
retain his son John Quincy Adams in the diplomatic 
office to which Washington had appointed him. To 

* Works, iii. 223. t Works, ii. 214. 



JOPIN ADAMS. 211 

his letter, asking advice upon this, Washington re- 
plied, " It is right for you to keep him there, not to 
put him there." * Yet Adams afterwards made his 
wife's nephew, William Cranch, Judge of the United 
States District Court at Washington, and his son-in- 
law, Colonel Smith, he put in a high office, f All 
our Presidents, except Washington and John Quincy 
Adams, have put their relations in office. It is a 
dangerous and unjust practice. 

John Adams had a strong temptation to the in- 
dulgence of animal passions, but he kept all the ap- 
petites in their place ; and in his old age could 
proudly write, " No virgin or matron ever had cause 
to blush at the sight of me, or to regret her acquaint- 
ance with me. No father, brother, son, or friend 
ever had cause of grief or resentment for any inter- 
course between me and any daughter, sister, mother, 
or any other relation of the female sex." \ Here he 
was greatly the superior of Franklin, Jefferson, Ham- 
ilton, nay, of Washington himself. 

These are great virtues. Few politicians can boast 
such. But he was ill-tempered, " sudden and quick 

* Works, viii. 529. In this letter Washington expresses a strong 
hope that "you will not withhold merited promotion from Mr. 
John [Quincy] Adams because he is your son.; " and also says, 
" I give it as my decided opinion that Mr. Adams is the most valu- 
able public character we have abroad," and so on in the same strain. 

t Works, ix. 63. \ Works, ii. 145. 



212 JOHN ADAMS. 

in quarrel," and madly impetuous. He was not a 
good judge of character. He often suspected the 
noblest of men, and put credulous faith in mean and 
deceitful persons, and so was unjust while he meant 
it not. Intensely ambitious of place and of power, 
he yet sought always to rule his desire by his duty. 
But if he sought only excellent things, the spirit of 
the search was not in all cases commendable. The 
motive was often selfish, the method wrong, and the 
manner harsh. His temper was not magnanimous or 
noble. He was suspicious, and jealous, and envious 
of men before him in social rank, or above him in 
power. He attributes mean motives to all men, often 
to the noblest in the land. His early writings prove 
this abundantly, and his later also. He was envious 
of Dr. Franklin in France ; and the frog stretched 
himself to resemble the ox. He hated a superior. 

I think he rarely forgave a foe, or one he fancied 
such. Reverence he had for God ; little for noblest 
men. Witness his harsh words about Samuel Adams 
and John Hancock ; his unrelenting enmity to Ham- 
ilton and Pickering. 

But his wrath against Dr. Franklin was of the 
most needless, wanton, and malignant character. I 
think he bore it with him to his grave. Sound- 
headed by nature as he was, he was constitutionally 
a fighting man. This appears in his Diary, and in 
the newspaper articles written by him before the 



JOHN ADAMS. 213 

Revolution and after it. It also became manifest 
when he was Vice-President, and in the higher office 
of President, and it may be observed in the Autobi- 
ography which he wrote in his old age. His letters 
to Mr. Cunningham, in 1804-1809, seem to me not 
less than wicked. He was intensely violent in his 
wrath, which a trifle could rouse, and nothing could 
stay. He was indiscriminate as to the object of it. 
It might be a member of his Cabinet who opposed a 
measure, or a butcher in Quincy who brought in his 
bill. But shortly after the passion of his wrath he 
cooled down, and did with delight what he had at 
first refused with vehement anger.* 

Impatient of process, and greedy of result, he was 
most intensely desirous of honor and applause. His 
early Diary is full of examples ; so, too, is the later. 

* When he was President of the United States, Congress required 
him to negotiate a loan for the support of the American Army. The 
Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Wolcott, was decidedly of opinion 
that in the then condition of the money market he ought not to 
puhlish proposals for the loan offering to subscribers a less rate of 
interest than eight per cent. As to this state of things, he writes 
many years afterwards, in 1815, " My patience, which had been put 
to so many severe trials by enemies and friends, was quite exhaust- 
ed, and I broke out, ' This d — d army will be the ruin of this 
country. If it must be so, it must. I cannot help it. Issue your 
proposals as you please.' I ask pardon for that peevish and vulgar 
expression; but for the truth, in substance and essence, of this narra- 
tion, I appeal to Mr. Wolcott himself. I know that Oliver Wolcott 
dare not lie." Works, x. 130. 



214 JOHN ADAMS. 

At Paris, in 1782, he was highly complimented for 
the success of his negotiation in Holland. He writes 
in his journal, "A few of these compliments would 
kill Franklin, if they should come to his ears." * He 
reads all the complimentary nothings which the 
French said to him. Yet, great as his vanity was, 
I think it never bent him aside from his duty. Lov- 
ing the praise of man, he never once stooped for it ; 
never hesitated to do the most unpopular act if sure 
it was right ; never bowed that great, manly head to es- 
cape abuse which his imprudence or his temper brought 
upon him. He was excessively arrogant. " I always 
consider the whole Nation as my children," he writes 
in 1809 ; j " but they have almost all been undutifui to 
me. You two gentlemen," Mr. Wright and Mr. Ly- 
man, "are almost the only ones, put of my own house, 
who have expressed a filial affection for John Adams." 
He claims that he is the author of the chief things 
in the Declaration of Independence. " Jefferson has 
acquired such glory by his Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, in 1776, that, I think, I may boast of my 
declaration of independence in 1755, twenty-one 
years older than his." J He refers to a letter of his 
written when he was a boy of twenty at Worcester. 
Some one ascribed to Samuel Adams " the honor of 
the first idea and project of Independence." John 
Adams claims that it was his thunder, let off when 

* Works, iii. 309. t ix. 615. J ix. 592. 



JOHN ADAMS. 215 

he was twenty years old. "In 1755, when my letter 
to Dr. Webb was written, I had never seen the face 
of Samuel Adams.* I heartily wished the two coun- 
tries were separated forever." f rr The Declaration 
of Independence of 4th of July, 1776, contained 
nothing but the Boston Declaration of 1772, and the 
Congressional Declaration of 1774. Such are the 
caprices of fortune ! The Declaration of Rights [of 
1774] was drawn by the little John Adams. The 
mighty Jefferson, by the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence of 4th July, 1776, carried away the glory 
of the great and- the little." J 

Claiming so much for himself, he abused his rivals. 
Samuel Adams and John Hancock are the " Stone 
House faction, and will be sure of all the loaves and 
fishes in the National Government, and the State 
Government as they hope." § He speaks sneeringly 
of Hancock. "Yes, this is the place where the great 
Governor Hancock was born. John Hancock ! a man 
without head and without heart ; the mere shadow 
of a man ; and yet a Governor of old Massachu- 
setts ! " || He did not like to hear the praises of 
"Washington. One day he dined with a company in 
a neighboring town. After dinner, when he rose to 

* Works, ix. 592. t Works, ix, 612. 

X Works, vi. 278. § Works, viii. 508. 

|| Cunningham Correspondence, p. 215. See his admirable ac- 
count of Hancock, Works, x. 259. 



216 JOHN ADAMS. 

depart, a clergyman attended him to the hall, and 
offered to wait upon him with his cloak, and said, 
" Sir, the country owes so much to Washington and 
you." Mr. Adams snapped him up. " Washington 
and me ! Do not let me hear you say that again ! Sir, 
Washington was a dolt." It was a momentary spasm 
of envy and of wrath, coming from " that weak hu- 
mor that his mother," or some one else, "gave him." 
At other times he did justice to Washington, 
though always a little coldly, for neither liked the 
other. He was often unjust to Samuel Adams, and 
even to John Hancock, whose faults were certainly 
offensive, though his virtues were exceedingly great. 
Constitutionally, Adams was a grumbler. He 
hated things present, and longed for the absent or 
the past. Thus, while a schoolmaster at Worcester, 
he often complains of his irksome task ; but at Brain- 
tree, studying law, he sighs for the mental activity 
which school-keeping forced out of him. His life as 
a country lawyer, riding his circuit, pleases him no 
more. It is a life of " here and there and anywhere," 
and will lead him to neither fame, fortune, power, 
nor to the service of his friends, clients, or country.* 
In 1765, in the Stamp Act times, the courts were 
shut. Adams writes in his journal, "Thirty years 
of my life are passed in preparation for business. I 
have had poverty to struggle with, envy and jealousy 

* Works, i. 84: ; ii. 208. 



JOHN ADAMS. 217 

mid malice of enemies to encounter; no friends, or 
but few, to assist me, so that I have groped in dark 
obscurity till of late, and had but just become known, 
and gained a small degree of reputation, when this 
execrable project (the Stamp Act) was set on foot for 
my ruin, as well as that of America in general, and of 
Great Britain." December 18, 1765.* The very next 
day he finds that Boston has chosen him for her Attor- 
ney, to appear before the Council on this very matter 
of closing the Courts ! What he thought was his ruin 
became the highway to fortune and to fame. By aud 
by he complains of his public life, that he has done so 
much for the people. " I reap nothing but insult, ridi- 
cule, aud contempt for it, even from many of the peo- 
ple themselves." "I have stood by the people much 
longer than they would stand by themselves. But I 
have learned wisdom by experience. I shall certainly 
become more retired and cautious. I shall certainly 
mind my own farm and my own office." f But here 
he complains he is out of politics. "I believe there 
is no man in so curious a situation as I am. I am, 
for what I can see, quite left alone in the world." J 

He travels for his health along the beautiful valley 
of the Connecticut River, but gets "weary of this 
idle, romantic jaunt." " I believe it would have been 
as well to have staid in my own country, and amused 
myself with my farm, and rode to Boston every day. 

* Works, i. 76. f Works, ii. 260. J Works, ii. 279. 



218 JOHN ADAMS. 

I shall not certainly take such a ramble again merely 
for my health." "I want to see my wife, my chil- 
dren, my farm, my horse, oxen, cows, walls, fences, 
workmen, office, books, and clerks. I want to hear 
the news and politics of the day. But here I am at 
Bissell's, in Windsor, hearing my landlord read a 
chapter in the kitchen, and go to prayers with his 
family in the genuine tone of a Puritan." * When, in 
Congress he wants to resign. Ten days before the 
Declaration of Independence he writes, "When a 
few mighty matters are accomplished here, I retreat, 
like Cincinnatus, to my plough, and, like Sir Wil- 
liam Temple, to my garden, and farewell politics ! 
I am wearied to death. Some of you younger folks 
must take your trick, and let me go to sleep." (He 
is then about forty-one.) "My children will scarcely 
thank me for neglecting their education and interest 
so long. They will be worse off than ordinary beg- 
gars, because I shall teach them, as a first principle, 
not to beg. Pride and want, though they may be ac- 
companied with liberty, or at least may live under a 
free Constitution, are not a very pleasant mixture nor 
a very desirable legacy, yet this is all that I shall leave 
them." | In the grand letter which tells of the Dec- 
laration of Independence itself, while his own mag- 
nificent defence of it is still echoing in his ears, 

* Works, ii. 272. f Works, ix. 411. 



JOHN ADAMS. 219 

and composing music at the end of his pen, he tells 
his wife he cannot accept the office of Chief Justice 
of Massachusetts. He has not "fortune enough to 
support my family, and what is of more importance, 
to support the dignity of that exalted station. It is 
too high and lifted up for me, who delight in nothing 
so much as retreat, solitude, silence, and obscurity."* 
" In private life no one has a right to censure me for 
following . my own inclinations in retirement, sim- 
plicity, and frugality. In public life every man has 
a right to remark as he pleases. At least he thinks 
so." " I had rather build stone walls on Penn's Hill 
(part of his farm), than be the first Prince in Europe, 
or the first General, or the first Senator in America." 
So he wrote on the 18th of August, 1776. j When 
Vice-President, he does not like the office; it is the 
most insignificant in the world. " I wish very hearti- 
ly that a change of Vice-President could be made 
to-morrow. I have been too ill used in the office to 
be fond of it, if I had not been introduced into it in 
a manner that made it a disgrace. I will never serve 
in it again upon such terms." J President Jefferson 
appointed John Quincy Adams Minister to Russia. 
The father was not pleased. "Aristides is banished 
because he is too just." w He will not leave an 
honester or abler man behind him. He was sent 

* Works, ix. 417. t Hamilton's Hamilton, i. 1G4. 

% Works, ix. 567. 



220 JOHN ADAMS. 

away, as a dangerous rival too near the throne."* 
Certainly these are great vices ; but John Adams 
possessed such virtues that he can afford to have them 
told, and subtracted from his real merit. He was so 
perfectly open that it is himself who furnishes all 
the evidence against himself. If he exaggerates the 
faults of other men, he treats his own quite as se- 
riously. He defended Hancock, whom he sometimes 
abused, and said, "If he had vanity and caprice, so 
had I. And if his vanity and caprice made me some- 
times sputter, as you know they often did, mine, I 
well know, had often a similar effect upon him. But 
these little flickering s of little passions determine noth- 
ing concerning essential characters." f 

III. Adams was not very rich in his affectional 
nature ; the objects- of his love were few. Out of 
the family circle, I think he had no intimates or con- 
fidants. There were no friendships between him and 
the leading Patriots of the Revolution. His Diary 
represents him as a man "intensely solitary," who 
confided little in any one, and quarrelled often with 
many. He liked the Lees of Virginia; liked Ralph 
Izard, — a quite unworthy man; but made friend- 
ships with none of them, not even with Washington, 
Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other famous 
chiefs of the Revolution. But in the later years of 

* Works, x. 158. t Works, x. 259. 



JOHN ADAMS. 221 

his life a friendship quite beautiful sprang up with Jef- 
ferson, his old rival and former foe. The letters which 
passed between them are an honor to both of them, 
and form one of the pleasantest episodes in the later 
lives of these two great men. The rage of ambition 
is all over, and a tone of friendship enlivens the 
themes of the letters which occasionally passed be- 
tween them, and in which both much delighted. His 
correspondence with Mr. Van dcr Kemp, a learned 
and scholarly Dutchman, whom the French Revolu- 
tion drove to America, shows his affection in its most 
pleasing light. He was a charitable man, and did 
his alms in secret. While President, in a time of 
great distress, he subscribed live hundred dollars for 
the poor at Philadelphia ; but he did it in private, and 
kept his name out of sight. He was lenient towards 
offenders. Thus, against the vehement advice of 
his. Cabinet, he pardoned Mr. Fries, condemned for 
treason. The leading Federalists hated him for this 
act of righteous clemency.* But he sometimes 
writes truculent letters about men who used what 
he called seditious language. f He was violent in 
his hasty speech, never cruel in his deliberate acts. 

IV. Mr. Adams had strong relief ions emotions — 
reverence for God, conscientious desire to keep his 

* Works, ix. 57. 

f Works, ix. 13, et. seq. ; ix. 582-584. 



222 JOHN ADAMS. 

natural Laws, a deep remorse when he violated the 
integrity of his own conscience, and a devout, unfail- 
ing trust in the goodness of God, which is alike the 
protection of Nations and of individual men. He, 
by his nature, inclined to the Ministerial profession ; 
and but for the bigotry of that age, and for his own 
spontaneous enlightenment, would probably have 
been one of the most powerful in that class which 
has enrolled so much of the talent and virtue of New 
England, and made so profound a mark on the char- 
acter of the people. All his life long Mr. Adams 
had a profound religious sense. Though hating for- 
mality, he was yet an ecclesiastical man as well as a 
religious man. But he hated Hypocrisy, hated Big- 
otry, hated Intolerance. Not a word of cant deforms 
his writings. In his early life he learned to hate Cal- 
vinism. That hatred continued all his days. He 
was an Arminian at twenty. He read Bolingbroke, 
Morgan, and other free-thinking writers, in his 
youth. Their influence is obvious. They helped to 
emancipate him from the thraldom of New England 
Theology. But they did not weaken his religious 
sense, nor impair his virtue. When an old man, he 
read the great French writers on religious matters, 
not without enlightenment and profit ; but he did not 
show that audacious immorality which delighted to 
pull clown, with mockery, the Sacred Instruction 
which they neither could nor would replace, nor 



JOHN ADAMS. 223 

even attempt to supply. His theological opinions 
seem to have been much like those of Franklin, 
though in his case they do not seem to have had the 
same genial influence. 

In framing the Constitution of Massachusetts, in 
1779, he wished religion * to be left free. All sects, 
Christian and non-Christian, were to be equal be- 
fore the Law, and alike eligible to all offices. He 
could not carry that point. He labored for the same 
end in the Convention which revised the Constitution 
of Massachusetts in 1820 ; but still without success. 
In respect to religious toleration in 1779, he was far 
in advance of the Convention which sat forty years 
later, and indeed he was far in advance of the Courts 
of Massachusetts of this present day. He intro- 
duced a remarkable section into that Constitution for 
the encouragement of Literature, Science, and Mor- 
als. f He had a lively indignation against "that sys- 
tem of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and 
triumphed for fifteen hundred years." He detested 
the cruelties practised in the name of religion. " Re- 
member the Index Expurgatorius, the Inquisition, 
the stake, the axe, the halter, and the guillotine, and 
O, horrible, the rack ! " J He writes to Jefferson, 
in 1817, "Twenty times in the course of my late 
reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 

* Works, i. 627; iv. 221. 

t Works, iv. 259 ; C. F. Adams's note. } Works, vi. 479. 



224 JOHN ADAMS. 

* This would be the best of all possible worlds if there 
were no religion in it ! ' But in this exclamation I 
should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. 
Without religion, this world would be something not 
fit to be mentioned in polite company, —I mean 
Hell. So far from believing in the total and univer- 
sal depravity of human nature, I believe there is no 
individual totally depraved. The most abandoned 
scoundrel that ever existed never yet wholly extin- 
guished his conscience"; and while conscience re- 
mains, there is some religion. Popes, Jesuits, bor- 
bonnists, and Inquisitors have some conscience and 
some religion. Fears and terrors appear to have 
produced a universal credulity. . . . But fears of 
pain and death here do not seem to have been so un- 
conquerable as fears of what is to come hereafter." * 
He sympathized with all sects in their desire for 
Piety and Morality, and thought Jefferson as "good 
a Christian as Priestley and Lindsey, who had called 
Jefferson an unbeliever." | " The human understand- 
ing is a Revelation from its Maker, which can never 
be disputed or doubted." "No prophecies, no mira- 
cles are necessary to prove this celestial communica- 
tion." J He scorns the doctrine of eternal damna- 
tion. " I believe no such things. My adoration of 
the Author of the Universe is too profound and too 
sincere. The love of God and of his creation — de- 

* Works, x. 254. t Works, x. 56, 57. X Works, x. 66. 



JOHN ADAMS. 225 

light, joy, triumph, exultation in my own existence, 
— though but an atom, a molecule organique, in the 
universe, — these are my religion." 

"Howl, snarl, bite, ye Calvinistic, ye Athanasian 
divines, if you will. Ye will say I am no Christian. 
I say ye are no Christians, and there the account is bal- 
anced. Yet I believe all the honest men among you 
are Christians in my sense of the word." * He finds 
Christianity before Christ, Christian piety in the 
sacred writers before Jesus of Nazareth. He w does 
not believe in demoniacal possessions ; even if the 
Evangelists believed it, he does not." f 

Of course the charge of Infidelity was brought 
against him, as against all thoughtful and outspoken 
men, who seek to understand the causes of things, 
and to trample fear beneath their feet. 

I find his lack of religion in his bad temper, in 
envy, jealousy, hate, wrath ; but not in his disbelief 
of malignant devils and eternal Hell. The proof of 
his real religion I find in his Veracity, his Justice, 
Philanthropy, and in that Integrity which, I think, 
never failed him. 

Mr. Adams's personal appearance was not impos- 
ing or dignified. He was less then the average 
height of New England men, though with much 
more than an average of weight and width. He was, 

* Works, x. 67. t Works, x. 92. 

15 



226 JOHN ADAMS. 

in fact, a stout, corpulent man. His head was large, 
wide at the base, nearly round, but not high. His 
forehead was full and ample, though low for its 
width ; the mouth welt cut, the nose sufficiently 
massive. The general appearance of the face indi- 
cated power and repose, not that terrible vehemence 
of wrathful emotions with which it was sometimes 
animated. His bust and features seem to afford a 
good likeness of the man. 

Mr. Adams wrote much, but he only wrote books 
designed to meet the need of the hour. His most 
important writings are : a Discourse on the Canon 
and Feudal Law, 1765 ; the State papers in the quar- 
rel between the Colony of Massachusetts and Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson ; the Rights and Grievances of the 
American Colonies, 1774; his Plans of Government 
of the Independent States, 1776 ; the Constitution 
of Massachusetts, 1779 ; the Defence of the Ameri- 
can Constitution, 1786, and the papers on Davila, 
written while he was Vice-President, and published 
in the Philadelphia newspapers. These were applica- 
tions of his political principles to the actual affairs of 
America. In all these the style is poor, inelegant, 
and yet artificial. He is often inaccurate in his 
statement of facts, and sometimes hasty in lrjs gen- 
eralizations. His first address as President contains 
a sentence w T hich I think was then the longest in 
what is known of the English language. It since 



JOHN ADAMS. 227 

has been but once surpassed, and that by another 
citizen of Massachusetts who is yet more distin- 
guished than Mr. Adams for literary culture. 

His letters are the most pleasing part of his works, 
the only part now readable. Here the best are found 
in the beautiful correspondence with Jefferson, full 
of wit and wisdom, and, above all, enriched with a 
gentleness and affection that you vainly seek in so 
many other works of the great man. But the most 
charming of all his many writings are the letters to 
his wife. I think more than three hundred of them 
have been printed, and I know not where in the 
English language to find so delightful a collection. 
He had but one confidant, his wife ; but one inti- 
mate friend, the mother of his children. To her he 
told all — his loves and his hates, his anger and his 
gratitude, his hopes and his fears. She was able to 
comprehend his great mind, to sympathize in all his 
excellence. Her judgment seems to have been as 
sound as his own. If not original like his, like 
Washington's it was cool, critical, and accurate. 
She poured oil on the troubled waters of his life, 
and called him to behold the heavenly bow of beauty 
and of hope in the cloud which brooded over them. 
The cloud dropped down, and the sunshine followed 
in the footsteps of the storm. 

He was not what is now called an eloquent man. 
He had no oratorical tricks, no stops for applause, 



228 JOHN ADAMS. 

no poetic images, nothing of what the editors and 
reporters and half-educated ministers name " fine 
writing," and what school-girls call " perfectly splen- 
did." But everywhere strong sense, mastery of his 
matter, philosophic knowledge of causes, vehemence 
of emotion, and condensed richness of thought. The 
form is often faulty and misshapen, but the substance 
strong and sound. He moved other persons, for he 
was moved himself, and the great natural force which 
stirred him he brought to bear on other men. So he 
was always powerful as a speaker and writer. Yet, 
July 2, 1776, I think men did not say, "What a fine 
speech John Adams made ! " but only, " Down with 
the Kingly Government." He abounded in Evegyeia, 
which Demosthenes said was the first, second, and 
third requisite in oratory. Scarce any specimens of 
his speeches are left ; only the fame of their power 
survives. You often find profound thought in his 
writings.* No American writer npon Politics more 
abounds in it. 

He had not much confidence in the people, no in- 
stinct of Democracy. He leaned to aristocratic 
forms of Government. So, in the Constitution of 
the State of Massachusetts, he would give the Gov- 

* Works, iv. 216. He argued that it was impossible for human 
wisdom to form a plan of government that should suit all future 
emergencies, and that, therefore, periodical revisions were requi- 
site. 



JOHN ADAMS. 229 

ernor an absolute negative to all Acts of the Le<risla- 
ture, and empower him to appoint all the officers of 
the Militia, the Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains, 
and so on down to the Sergeants and Corporals.* 

He insisted on four things in his Plan of Govern- 
ment. (1.) A separation of the legislative, judicial, 
and executive Powers. (2.) The Legislature must 
have two bodies, a House and a Senate. (3.) The 
Judiciary must be appointed during good behavior. 
(4.) The Executive must be single; one man, not a 
council of men. It was a wise man who devised 
such a scheme in 1776. He was often accused of 
favoring Monarchy, and wishing to establish in Amer- 
ica a Kins: and a House of Lords. The charge is 
utterly false. I think Jefferson is not blameless for 
his representation of Adams's opinions. He foresaw 
the greatness of America, and in 1786 said, " We 
are now employed in making establishments which 
will affect the happiness of a hundred millions of in- 
habitants at a time, in a period not very distant." | 
He wrote a book on all the liberal Governments of 
the world, to show their virtues and their vices. He 
dared tell the faults of our own Institutions. J Who 

* Works, iv. 186, 231, 249, 250, 258. See his respect for birth, 
vi. 502. But see, in this connection, ix. 574 ; also, ix. 376, 551, 
557, 571, 590. 

f Works, iv. 587. Cunningham Correspondence. 

X Works, iv. 276, 399 ; also x. 268. Cunningham Letters, lix. 
p. 195. 



230 JOHN ADAMS. 

ventures on that now? Even then he was, for doinsf 
so, much abused. 

In 1780 Dr. Franklin wrote from France home to 
his Government, that "Adams means well for his 
country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, 
sometimes, and in some things, is absolutely out of 
his senses ;" * and adds also, "I know that bv tell- 
ing it I hazard a mortal enmity." The criticism was 
just, and also the forecast of its consequence. But 
weigh the man in an even balance. His faults were 
chiefly of ill-temper and haste; his virtues — Patri- 
otism, Truthfulness, Moral Courage, Integrity — have 
seldom been surpassed, nay, rarely equalled in pub- 
lic men. He had no prejudice against any section 
of the country. Here he was superior to both Jef- 
ferson and Washington, who ever denied justice to 
New England. He was an intense Patriot, and did 
not hesitate to sacrifice his dearest personal wishes 
for the good of his country. In his later days some 
distinguished foreigners came to visit him at Quincy. 
He met them by appointment, and sat in a great 
chair in the shade close by his house. "In the be- 
ginning of the fight did you think you should suc- 
ceed ?" asked one of the visitors. "Yes," said the 
old man ; " I never doubted that the country would 
succeed, but I expected nothing but certain ruin for 
myself." 

* Diplomatic Corres. of Revolution, iv. 139. 



JOHN ADAMS. 231 

The hate against him has not died away. Still, 
for old Federalist and for old Democratic families, 
detraction is busy at its work. But after all just 
deduction is made from his conduct, it must be con- 
fessed that no man has had so wide, so deep, and so 
lasting an influence on the great constructive work 
of framing the best Institutions of America. And 
the judgment of posterity will be, that he was a 
brave man, deep-sighted, conscientious, patriotic, 
and possessed of Integrity which nothing ever shook, 
but which stood firm as the granite of his Quincy 
Hills. While American Institutions continue, the 
People will honor brave, honest old John Adams, 
who never failed his country in her hour of need, 
and who, in his life of more than ninety years, 
though both passionate and ambitious, wronged no 
man nor any woman ! 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



(233) 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



New England was settled by real Colonists ; 
men full of ideas which were far in advance of their 
times. These ideas could not he carried out in Eng- 
land, and therefore they emigrated to what was af- 
terwards called the "New England." Here Demo- 
cratic Institutions at once sprung up among them. 
Their antecedents and their principles could not have 
produced any different growth. The distinction be- 
tween rich and poor, educated and ignorant, soon 
became the chief differences in their social scale. 
There was but one sort of men, though many condi- 
tions. The Government was by the people, and it 
favored the distribution of wealth, not its accumula- 
tion in special families. Education was open to all, 
at the public cost. The form of Religion was Con- 
gregational. The Congregational Church had more 

~ C ~ CD 

individual members than any Christian sect. The 
theology was Calvinistic, and that always stimu- 
lates men to metaphysical speculation and to liberal 
study. 

(235) 



236 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

In Virginia, it was quite different. Religion had 
nothing to do with its settlement. Partly, the emi- 
grants were younger sons of younger brothers, de- 
scendants from wealthy houses, who either had some 
moderate property, or had got manorial grants of land 
from the Crown ; partly, they were the servants and 
vassals of these nominal lords of Manors, and partly, 
they were the scourings of the British jails. They 
brought no superior Ideas along with them. They 
did not found democratic institutions ; for all their 
care was to keep their institutions aristocratic. The 
Government was in the hands of a few, and it favored 
the entailment of property on a few, not its distribu- 
tion among many. It kept up the division of Castes, 
so that there should be as many sorts of men as there 
were conditions of society. Social distinction was 
founded on the acknowledged differences in birth, 
property, and powerful connection, and to appear- 
ance not at all dependent upon knowledge, virtue, 
or true nobility of character. No pains were taken 
to provide for public education. 

The Printing Press had come early to New Eng- 
land, where it had printed Eliot's translation of the 
Bible into the Indian language, and had published 
two editions of it long before Virginia had produced 
a printed line. 

The form of Religion in Virginia was Episcopal. 
None other was tolerated. It encouraged neither 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 237 

metaphysical thought nor biblical study. This 
tended to repress individuality of religion. 

In New England wealth was diffused ; education, 
political power, all were diffused widely. In 1764, 
James Otis said, "The Colonists are men; the Colo- 
nists are therefore free born ; for, by the law of Na- 
ture, all men are free born, white or black. No good 
reason can be given for enslaving them of any color. 
Is it right to enslave a man because his color is black, 
or his hair short and curled like wool, instead of 
Christian hair? Can any logical inference or form 
of slavery be drawn from a flat nose, or a long or 
short face? The riches of the West Indies, or the 
luxury of the metropolis, should not have weight to 
swerve the balance of Truth and Justice. Liberty is 
the gift of God, and cannot be annihilated." 

In a word, in Virginia everything was condensed 
upon a few. while in New England all was thorough- 
ly Democratic. Still it might be seen, that in Vir- 
ginia, while her Institutions were framed, and in- 
tended to be thoroughly Aristocratic, yet in spite 
of them the excellent men in that new country could 
not be kept down. They would rise, and by the 
natural high pressure of their qualities they would, 
like water, seek their natural level, because a down- 
ward tendency is impossible to Human Nature. And 
so, too, in New England, it happened that, although 
all her Institutions had been, from the beginning, 



238 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

most eminently Liberal and Popular, yet many things 
there hindered the immediate and free development 
of the People. 

In the beginning of the last century, in Virginia 
there were three classes of free white men. 

First. The great proprietors, who owned large 
tracts of land. These were the " First Families " of 
Virginia, who, though dwelling in "abodes compara- 
tively mean," affected to live in the style of British 
Nobles. They had rude wealth, land, cattle, fine 
horses, slaves, white servants, "bought for a time," 
and abundance of maize, wheat, and especially of 
tobacco — the great article of export. 

Second. The small proprietors, men with moderate 
landed estates, cultivated under their own eye. Some 
of these became rich men, but never acquired that 
social rank to which the first were born. Yet the 
primal vigor of this population, its ready talent, and 
all its instinct of progress, lay in this second class, 
whence have arisen, I think, all the distinguished 
men of Virginia. 

Third. Below these was the class of poor whites, 
indispensable to such a scheme of society. These 
w T ere laborers, without landed property more than a 
patch of ground, and a little hovel, which added the 
deformity of a low Humanity to the original beauty 
of Nature. These men had no literary or scientific 
education, and could obtain none. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 239 

Underneath all were the negro slaves, who gave a 
peculiar character to the entire colony, affecting its 
industry, its thought, and its morals. 

In the second class of small proprietors was born 
Peter Jefferson, on the 29th of February, 1708, at 
Osbornes, on James River, in Chesterfield County. 
The family had come from Wales. Peter seems to 
have inherited no property ; the Jefferson family, I 
think, was poorer than the average of the class, just 
above the poor whites. Peter had no education in 
early life, but was able-minded as well as able- 
bodied, with a thoughtful turn. He became a sur- 
veyor of land, mainly self-taught, I fancy. He got 
a little property together, and in 1735 "patented" 
one thousand acres of land ; that is, had it granted 
him by the Legislature of the Colony of Virginia. 
He bought four hundred acres more, the considera- 
tion paid being "Henry Weatherbourne's biggest bowl 
of arrack punch" 1 He made a little clearing in the 
primeval forest, and began his career as a planter. 
In 1738 he married Jane Randolph, she being in 
her twentieth, he in his thirtieth year. She was the 
daughter of Isham Randolph, a wealthy man, who 
lived in rough splendor and had great pretensions 
to family dignity, well educated for a man of that 
time ; he was, moreover, intelligent and generous. 
Peter took his wife, delicately bred as she had 
been, to his rough farm, which he called Shadwell. 



240 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Here he planted his family tree, and subsequently 
became a prosperous man. He was appointed by 
the Legislature, in connection with Professor Fry, 
to make a map of Virginia. The work was done 
well for the time. He was commissioned Justice of 
the Peace, and appointed Colonel, and afterwards 
elected member of the House of Burgesses of the 
Colony of Virginia. He died August 17, 1757. 

At Shadwell, on the 13th of April, 1743, his first 
son and third child was born, and christened Thomas. 
His lineage was humble, as Virginians count gene- 
alogy ; his destination w T as not humble, as Virginia's 
history may certify. After the great men I have be- 
fore sketched, none has had so much influence on the 
destiny of America. Let us look this boy carefully 
in the face, and consider his deeds throughout all 
periods of his life, the character therein developed, 
and the extraordinary eminence he thereby acquired. 

I. Look at his boyhood and youth. 1743 to 1764. 

At the age of five he was sent to a common school 
at Tuckahoe, where the family moved when he was 
two years old. At nine years of age he studies un- 
der the Rev. Mr. Douglass, a Scotchman, a scholar, 
and an Episcopal Minister at Shadwell. With him 
the boy begins Latin, Greek, and French. He lived 
with the Minister, and found good instruction and 
mouldy pies. At fourteen he goes to Rev. Mr. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 241 

Maury's school, fourteen miles off, at Peter's Moun- 
tain. Mr. Maury, also a Scotchman, was a good 
scholar and a good teacher. In his spare time 
Thomas hunts on Peter's Mountain, and acquires 
an intimate knowledge of the animals and the plants, 
and some general knowledge of Natural History. 
These two gentlemen kept schools at their parson- 
ages. When company came the schools broke up, 
and thus Thomas got less Latin and more hunting. 
The pay for his board and instruction was sixteen 
pounds a year at the one place, and twenty pounds 
at the other. He was a bright boy, courteous and 
quick. 

In 1760, aged seventeen, he entered William and 
Mary's College, at Williamsburg, the capital of the 
Province, a town of fifteen hundred or two thousand 
inhabitants. Here he found another Scotchman, 
Professor Small, a good scholar, who still further 
helped and stimulated the intelligent youth. Jeffer- 
son was a friend of Dr. Small, and was devoted to 
study, often working fifteen hours a day. The Greek 
and Latin languages, and the mathematics, were his 
favorite pursuits. Metaphysics and ethics he great- 
ly disliked. He did not incline to works of fiction, 
commonly so attractive to young minds. He was 
highly moral, it is said, but fond of horses, which 
fondness continued all his life. He was also inclined 
to music, and learned to play skilfully on the violin. 
16 



242 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Thus he did not forget his sport in his toil. He 
staid at college but two years, and then, at nineteen, 
at the same place, began the study of Law with Mr. 
George Wythe, thought to be a profound lawyer at 
that time. He continued this preparation for his 
profession five years, often studying fourteen or fif- 
teen hours a day. He had a natural fondness for 
profound investigation, yet he found Coke "a dull 
old scoundrel." He learned the Anglo-Saxon, the 
Italian, and the Spanish Languages, and, it seems, 
read many books very indirectly connected with his 
profession. Here he became intimate with Mr. Fau- 
quier, the royal Governor of Virginia, a distinguished 
man, with quite elegant manners. Living familiarly 
in the best society of the Provincial capital, it was 
here and at this period that Jefferson acquired the 
easy carriage, gentlemanly deportment, and courteous 
manners which distinguished him all his life, and 
which greatly helped his success. Governor Fauquier 
was a gambler, and contaminated the Province with 
this vice. Jefferson kept clear from this detestable 
wickedness, shunning and hating it all his life. 
Fauquier was also a Freethinker in religion, and 
the effect was visible on the young man. 

He fell in love at this early period, like other 
young men, and, like them, wrote silly-letters, such 
as are still penned. Indeed, all his letters of this 
period are rather frivolous. He talks about "Becca" 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 243 

and "Sukey," "Judy" and " Belinda," finding those 
names more attractive than that "dull old scoundrel," 
Lord Coke. "How did Nancy look at you when you 
danced with her at Southall's?" 

"Handsome in his old age, in his youth Jefferson 
was no beauty. Then he was tall, thin, and raw- 
boned ; had red hair, a freckled face, and pointed 
features.; " but his face was intelligent and kindly, he 
talked with ease and grace, and in spite of exterior 
disadvantages, was a favorite with all the young 
women.* 

At the age of twenty-four, 1767, he was admitted 
to practice at the bar. Thus far his life had been an 
easy one, and singularly prosperous. How different 
from the youth of Franklin, or of Washington, or of 
Adams ! He kept himself free from the common 
vices of Virginia young men, such as gaming, drunk- 
enness, debauchery ; he never swore or used tobacco. 
His letters begin in his twentieth year, and, though 
somewhat frivolous, are written in a natural style at 
once easy and elegant. Here was a dawn to promise 
the great man. 

II. 1764-1768. A Lawyer and Politician, engaged 
in the affairs of Virginia and of the Nation, Jefferson 
had his office at Williamsburg, the capital of that 
Colony. It seems he " had little taste for the techni- 

* Tucker, i. 23. 



244 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

calities and chicanery of that profession," and never 
thought very highly of lawyers as a class. "Their 
business is to talk," said he. For the seven or ei<rht 
years he followed this profession he gradually rose 
to some eminence. His style was clear, but his 
voice poor and feeble, and, after speaking a few 
moments, it "would sink in his throat." He was 
not meant for a speaker. Yet, it appears, he had a 
considerable business for a young man. I find him 
employed in about five hundred causes previous to 
the year 1771, and in about four hundred and fifty 
causes in the next three and a half years, when he 
finally gave up business. His total fees of 1771 
were about two thousand dollars for the year; and 
that, probably, shows the average of his profes- 
sional receipts. 

In 1772, January 1, in the twenty-ninth year of 
his age, Mr. Jefferson married Mrs. Martha Skelton, 
the childless widow of Bathurst Skelton, and the 
daughter of John Wayles. She is said to have been 
handsome and accomplished, and she certainly was 
rich. Jefferson then owned one thousand nine hun- 
dred acres of land and forty or fifty slaves, bringing 
him an income of two thousand dollars a year. Mr. 
Skelton's widow brought him forty thousand acres of 
land and one hundred and thirty-five slaves, which 
she had inherited from her father. 

Such was the marriage portion of the great Dem- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 245 

ocrat.* The marriage was happy, and both parties 
seem to have been greatly fond of each other. Many 
tender little passages occur in his life showing how 
deep was their mutual affection. There is no more 
talk about " Becca " and " Sukey " in the letters. 

In 1769, three years before his marriage, at about 
the age of twenty-six, he had been chosen member of 
the House of Burgesses for Albemarle County. He 
was on the side of America, and against the oppres- 
sive measures of George III. Still more, in favor of 
Liberty, he urged the Legislature to allow individ- 
uals to emancipate their slaves. No ; it could not be 
granted. Not until 1782 could he persuade that 
body to allow manumission in- Virginia. f In 1774 
the Governor dissolved the House. Some of the 
most patriotic men met in a tavern to consider the 
matter. Thomas Jefferson was one of them. 

In May, 1774, there was a People's Convention in 
Virginia, the first ever held there without express 
form of law. This Convention was to choose del- 
egates to the Continental Congress, which had been 
called to meet at Philadelphia, in September. Jeffer- 
son did not attend the Convention, being prevented 
by illness ; but he drew up a form of instructions for 
the delegates to Congress, that it might be offered to 
the Convention, and adopted therein. This was a 

* Randall, i. 63-65. 

f Tucker, i. 43 ; also Randall, i. 58. 



246 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

very remarkable paper, and revolutionary enough for 
New England. His draft was not adopted ; but it 
was read, and afterwards printed as "A Summary 
View of the Rights of British America." The leap 
was too long, as yet, for the mass of the citizens. 
The "instructions" declared that the king "has no 
ricrht to land a single armed man on our shores." 
"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the 
same time." * 

On May 17, 1775, he was chosen member of Con- 
gress, to supply the place of Peyton Randolph. He 
took his seat, June 21, 1775, rather an obscure man 
then, with on\y a Virginia reputation. He had no 
national fame save what the " Summary View " of 
1774 had given him. He was a silent member., but 
John Adams calls him "powerful, frank, explicit, 
and decisive." 

His most important services in Congress were, 
(1) his draft of an address on the " Causes of taking 
up arms against England ;" f (2) the answer which 
he wrote to Lord North's " Conciliatory proposition ; " 
and (3) his report of the far-famed "Declaration 
of Independence," to me the most remarkable and 
important State paper in the world. Some of his 
descendants in Boston, I am told, still keep the little 

* Tucker, i. GO, 61. 

t This address was not adopted, but shared the fate of his draft of 
" instructions " in the Virginia Convention. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 247 

desk he wrote it upon. I hope the spirit of De- 
mocracy, which is freedom to all men, still animates 
and inspires all who write or look thereon. 

In 1776', September 1, Jefferson returned from 
Congress, and devoted himself to reconstructing the 
Constitution of his native State. He drafted a sketch 
or outline of a Constitution, which was not accepted, 
and is now lost ; but he wrote the preamble to the 
Constitution, which was adopted. This came from 
the same inspiration which had animated the Declara- 
tion of Independence. He took his seat in the 
Virginia House of Delegates, October 7, 1776, and 
there began the other great work of his life, the 
thorough Reformation of the State Institutions. 

1. He proposed to abolish all entails of landed 
estates. The actual possessors of entailed estates 
might dispose of them like other property. This 
was a Revolution. Jefferson laid the democratic 
axe at the root of that evil tree which poisoned 
the people. You may guess at the opposition to 
the measure, and the wrath against its author. But 
it prevailed. Males and the first-born were to have 
no special privilege. Primogeniture was done away 
with. All the children might share alike in the 
inheritance of their father's land and goods. 

2. He advised that foreigners should be allowed 
to become naturalized, and to attain all the rights of 
citizens. 



248 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

3. He recommended the revision of the laws in 
three important matters. 

The penal laws must be mitigated. The pen- 
alty of death ought to be limited to murder and 
treason. There should be no imprisonment for 
honest debt. 

There must be complete religious freedom. No 
one should be forced to pay for opinions which he 
disliked, or for the support of any form of reli- 
gion against his will. The church must rest on 
the voluntary contributions of the people. The law 
may judge no man's opinions. The Commonwealth 
of Virginia, like the Kingdom of Heaven, is to show 
no special favor to Christians, but Jews, Mohamme- 
dans, Deists, and Atheists are all to be equal before 
the law, and alike eligible to all offices. The 
church Establishment should be abolished, and all 
religious sects put on an equal footing. 

He would provide for the public education of 
the people, promote the culture of the great mass 
of men in free common schools, and improve the 
colleges for the superior education of the few. 

Some of these things he accomplished at once. 
Others were so far in advance of the times, that 
years must elapse before his ideas could be real- 
ized. He wished to abolish Slavery, but he had 
tried in vain to procure an act to enable a master 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 249 

to emancipate his slaves. So in the revision of the 
laws he made no new attempt. 

In these great works other men labored with 
Jefferson, but his was the leading mind, and shot 
before all others in the Slaveholdins: States. 

Next he was chosen Governor of Virginia, June 
1, 1779. He was reelected the following year. 
Here he had a difficult work to perform. Virginia 
contained about two hundred and ninety thousand 
free whites, and two hundred and seventy thousand 
slaves. They were scattered over sixty-one thou- 
sand square miles. The militia included all the 
free white men between sixteen and sixty ; but so 
scattered was the population, that, in most of the 
settled parts of the State there was not one militia- 
man to a square mile. And so ill-armed were the 
people, that there was not more than oue gun that 
could fire a bullet, to five militia-men. Not a gun 
to five square miles of land ! In an average tract 
of ten miles square, containing a hundred square 
miles, there would not be twenty guns. When 
recruits were drafted into the militia, many came 
without hats or caps, and were, moreover, barefoot! 
Besides all that, the State of Virginia had no ship- 
ping. There were two hundred and seventy thou- 
sand men, black enemies in. the midst of the people, 
ready to side with an invader when he should ap- 
pear. The coast of Virginia is intersected with 



250 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

bays and navigable rivers. In 1779-80 the British 
attacked the State with a numerous fleet and well- 
appoiuted armies ; what defence could be made ? 
With the most able Governor she could not have 
done much. But Jefferson had little administrative 
skill, and not the least military talent or disposition. 
The British did what they would in his State, — 
burnt the houses, pillaged the people, and in two 
years did damage to the amount of fifteen million 
hard dollars. Thirty thousand slaves were carried 
off. The British did not arm them and set them 
against their masters, else the State had been lost 
beyond recovery. Jefferson's own estates were plun- 
dered. He barely escaped being taken prisoner, 
for the militia made scarce any defence. Only two 
hundred men could be found to defend Richmond, 
one of the largest towns in the State. 

Jefferson resigned his office, declining a reelection 
in 1781. He found he was unfit for the station, and 
left it for braver and more military men. An at- 
tempt was made to impeach him, but it failed ; and, 
instead of impeaching him, the Legislature subse- 
quently passed a vote of thanks to him. 

In 1781 I find him a member of the House of 
Delegates, working nobly for the great enterprises 
that have been previously mentioned. He went 
back to Congress in 1783, and there he, the author 
of the Declaration of Independence, helped to ratify 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 251 

the treaty of peace. In 1784, June 1, the Delegates 
of Virginia ceded the portion claimed by her of the 
North-west Territory to the United States. Con- 
gress then passed the famous "Ordinance of the 
North-west Territory." Jefferson drafted the bill, 
and provided that the governments to be constituted 
therein w shall be in republican forms, and shall 
admit no person to be a citizen who holds any hered- 
itary title;" "that after the year 1800 of the Chris- 
tian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise 
than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted to have been per- 
sonally guilty." * A motion was made on the 19th 

* Randall, i. 398. In April, 1784, Mr. Jefferson was Chairman 
of a Committee (Mr. Chase of Maryland and Howell of Rhode Is- 
land also were members), and in that capacity submitted a plan for 
the government of the entire western region, from the thirty-first 
degree of north latitude to the northern boundary of the United 
States (thus including much more than the territory north-west of 
the Ohio River). One of the provisions of this important bill was, 
" that after the year 1800 there shall be neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude in any of the said States " into which it was provided 
that the territory might be divided, " other than in the punishment of 
crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The 
question being taken upon this proviso, seven States voted for it, and 
but three against; one State was equally divided in its representa- 
tion, and two were absent. And so it was lost, as by the rules at 
least two thirds of the thirteen States were required to vote for it 
before it could beeome a law. 



252 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

April, 1794, and afterwards carried, to strike out 
this clause. The New England members gave a 
unanimous vote to strike out that clause which would 
have established slavery in what is now Ohio, Mich- 
igan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. 

Mr. Jefferson was the recognized leader of Con- 
gress in 1783-4, though he had able men for rivals. 
On the 10th of March, 1785, Congress appointed 
him Minister to France, to succeed Dr. Franklin. 
Indeed, he had three times before been offered the 
same office, and had declined it, sometimes in con- 
sequence of the feeble health of his wife : now she 
had become loosed from her frail body. 

III. As Diplomatist in Europe. 1784-1789. 

I shall not discourse at any length on his services 
abroad. He was a skilful diplomatist. His great 
knowledge, his admirable sagacity, his conciliatory 
spirit, and his good manners, helped to accomplish 
what he sought. He attended to. the usual routine 
of a Minister's duties, but no great services were 
to be accomplished. He returned to his country, on 
leave of absence, in 1789. A singular reception 
awaited him at home. When he came to Monticello 
his slaves took him from his coach, and bore him 
in their arms to the house.* A singular mode of 
riding for the author of the Declaration of Inde- 

* Tucker, i. 337. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 253 

penclence ! But it proved that if a master, he was 
kind and beloved ! Jefferson was pleased with a 
diplomatic position, but President Washington had 
destined him to higher services. 

IV. In the Executive of the United States. 1790- 
1809. 

When Jefferson returned from France the Con- 
stitution was adopted, the new officers chosen, the 
Government organized. At first he did not like the 
Constitution. It made the Central Government too 
strong, excessively curtailing the power of the in- 
dividual States. It would allow the same man to 
be chosen President again and again, to the end of 
his life. It contained no Bill of Rights, declaring 
what powers the States and the individual citizens 
did not delegate to the General Government. Jef- 
ferson was a Democrat, and the Constitution was 
not the work of Democrats ; in fact Franklin and 
Madison were the only men of considerable ability 
who represented the Democracy in forming the 
Constitution. But after it was adopted he came 
earnestly to its defence, and held three several Exec- 
utive offices under it. 

1. He was Secretary of State from March 21, 
1790, to December 31, 1793. 

He did not wish to accept the office, preferring his 
Diplomatic Mission at Paris. But Washington so- 



254 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

licited him to accept, and he entered on the duties 
of the Secretaryship. Hamilton was Secretary of 
Treasury, Knox of War — both Federalists, whom 
Jefferson accuses of leaning towards Monarchy. 
Edmund Randolph was Attorney General, and Jeffer- 
son Secretary of State — both Democrats. Jeffer- 
son and Hamilton were commonly on opposite sides. 
They contended on measures and on principles, then 
quarrelled, and finally hated one another with all 
their might. 

Jefferson opposed the great measures of Washing- 
ton's Administration ; the Funding Bill, the As- 
sumption of State Debts, and the establishment of 
the United States Bank. Here, I think, he was 
right ; but the measures prevailed, and were popu- 
lar with the wealthy and educated classes in all the 
Northern States. But he opposed the Military 
Academy, the Coast Fortification, and the Navy, 
lie especially disliked the Navy, and opposed the 
measures of the President to raise it to any footing 
efficient for War. He took sides with France, and 
favored her encroachments. He was willing to allow 
Mr. Genet, the Minister of France, to violate the 
neutrality of our soil, to enlist soldiers in our towns, 
and to fit out and commission privateers in our har- 
bors. He disliked England, and, in fact, had a dis- 
trust and fear of that Nation, which were only too 
well founded. Thus he inclined to a war with Eng- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 255 

land, and resolutely resisted some of her pretensions 
with manly spirit. He supported men who abused 
Washington and the Government, of which Jefferson 
himself was a part. 

Washington became more and more anti-democratic 
in his administration, put more and more confidence 
in Hamilton, whose active mind, invasive will, and 
skill in organizing men had an undue influence over 
the President, then waxing feeble, and becoming 
averse to business. Jefferson found his power di- 
minishing in the Cabinet, and not growing in the 
country. At the end of 1793 he withdrew from 
his post, and sat down on his estate at Monticello 
to repair his private fortunes, already somewhat 
shattered.* 

Out of office he was the head of the Democratic 
party even more than while in it, and the centre of 
the opposition to Washington and his administra- 
tion. His house was the headquarters of the oppo- 
sition. His letters show that his heart was not at 
Monticello, nor his mind busy with maize, tobacco, 
and breeding slaves. He professed to desire no 
office. He would live in private*, and arrange his 
plantations and his books. 

But when Washington was about to withdraw 
from office, in 1796, Jefferson w r as the Democratic 
candidate for the Presidency. He was defeated. 

* Tucker, i. 466-470. 



256 THOMAS JEFFERSON . 

John Adams bad seventy-one votes. — one more than 
a majority; Jefferson, sixty-eight, — two less than 
enough. John Adams represented the Constitu- 
tional Party, which included the wealth, the educa- 
tion, the farming aud the mercantile interests, and 
the inventive skill of the Nation. Jefferson was the 
champion of the Progressive Party, which was com- 
posed of a few men of genius, of ideas, and strength, 
but chiefly made up of the lower masses of men, with 
whom the instincts are stronger than reflection, and 
the rich slaveholders of the South, who liked not the 
constraints of law. 

2. While Jefferson was Vice-President, bis only 
function was to preside in the Senate, where the 
Federalists had a decided majority. President 
Adams disliked him, shunned him, did not consult 
him about public affairs. Indeed, the political dif- 
ference between them was immense. Their systems 
were antagonistic. Jefferson looked with the eyes 
of a partisan on some of the measures of Adams's 
administration, and with righteous contempt on the 
" Alien and Sedition " Law, and other despotic meas- 
ures. But in these he must have read the prophecy 
that his opponents would soon fall, to rise never 
more. He contended vehemently against the party 
in power. 

In 1798 he said, "Our General Government, in 
nine or ten years, has become more arbitrary than 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 257 

even that of England, and has swallowed up more 
of the public liberty." * He drew up the celebrated 
Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, which declared sev- 
eral Acts of Congress "null and void;" "not law, 
but altogether void, and of no force ; " and called 
on the other States, within their bounds, to nullify 
them, and all such unconstitutional acts. Such res- 
olutions looked revolutionary. Alas, they were 
only too just ! But Kentucky was not quite ready 
for such strong measures, and modified the resolu- 
tions. Presently Madison presented the same doc- 
trine in the Virginia Resolutions of 17U8. Both 
papers came from the Democratic spirit of Jeffer- 
son, and the seeming dangers were yet unavoidable. 
For the acts they opposed were about as unjust 
as the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. Jefferson feared 
centralized power, which always degenerates into 
despotism. He loved local self-government, and 
did not apprehend that it would run to license, as 
it yet often has done, and now does in South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, and Alabama. He was afraid only of 
the concentrated despotism of the few, not knowing 
that the many may also become tyrants. 

He watched with a keen eye the increasing trou- 
bles of the Federal party, the hostility of its leaders 
to the President, for whose office he was the chief 
candidate of the Democracy. He grew more and 

* Tucker, ii. 43. 

17 



258 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

more bold, and confident of success. Indeed, the 
ultimate victory of his partisans was never doubtful. 
They embodied the Nation's instinct of progress, 
though in no high moral form. 

The Federal party deserted the ablest and the 
most honest of their great men. John Adams was 
defeated. Jefferson and Burr had the same number 
of Electoral votes. It came to the House of Repre- 
sentatives to decide who should be President. They 
voted by States. The Democracy voted for Jeffer- 
son, the Federalists preferred Aaron Burr. Thirty- 
five times they balloted without choice. On the 
17th of February (1801), — on the seventh day of 
the ballot, and at the thirty-sixth trial, — Jefferson 
was chosen. Burr was Vice-President, and the Fed- 
eral party dead. Rich in great men, who did noble 
service in their day, it had done its work, and it 
died when it was needed no longer. Let you and 
me do justice to its great merits and to its great 
men, but never share in its distrust of the People 
and of the dearest instincts of Humanity. 

3. Jefferson became President on the 4th of March, 
1801, and held the office eight years. 

It was a fortunate time for the chief of the Demo- 
cratic party to enter upon his power. The Federal- 
ists had taken the responsibility of organizing the 
Government, providing for the payment of debts, 
levying taxes, making treaties of alliance and com- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 259 

merce with foreign states. The Democracy had only 
to criticise the faults of their rivals ; they were uot 
obliged to share the blame of what was unpopular. 
Besides, the storm of war which had threatened 
between the United States and either England or 
France, had been blown off by the powerful breath 
of Adams. The Nation was at peace, the revenue 
abundant, industry more various and successful than 
ever before. Jefferson was the most popular man in 
his party ; perhaps, also, himself the ablest. Certain- 
ly no Democrat was endowed with such versatile 
skill. There was no longer any hope of reconciling 
the two parties as such, or of reconciling the Federal 
leaders. John Adams had gone down. Washington 
himself could not have breasted the flood of waters 
for a week longer ; the great swollen sea of the De- 
mocracy would have overwhelmed him, and, with its 
irresistible surge, would have borne some more 
fortunate rival far up the strand. 

The Federal party was swallowed up. Jefferson's 
policy was not to array the hostile parties, but, 
breaking up all parties, to gather to himself the 
mass of the peopie. His Inaugural Address, very 
handsomely written, was a proclamation of peace. 
" We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," 
said he. Nothing could be more timely. 

He selected a good Cabinet. The Mates were all 
Democrats. He was Master, not to be overcome 



260 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

by his councillors, as Adams, and even as Washing- 
ton, had often been. He did not change them in 
eight years : they were a unit. He removed the 
Federal leaders from all the most important offices. 
How else could he get rid of them? "Few die," 
said he, " and none resign." But he intended not 
more than twenty removals in all. Of course those 
who went out looked grim at those who came in, lean 
with expectation. Jefferson would have rotation in 
office. 

Here are the six chief acts of his administration. 

1. He abandoned the defences of the country. 
Upon the ground of expediency, he opposed the 
fortification of the principal harbors, and he consid- 
ered the establishment of a Military Academy not 
within the specific powers assigned to Congress. 
While he was Vice-President, he and his Republican 
party had vehemently opposed a Navy, as being alto- 
gether unsuited to the means of the United States, 
and as being likely to involve the country in war. 
In this he opposed and obstructed the policy very 
much favored by Mr. Adams. And, consistently 
with these principles, when he himself came into 
power, he neglected the Army and Navy, and insist- 
ed upon building two hundred and fifty gunboats, 
which should cost but five thousand dollars each, 
instead of constructing larger and more efficient ves- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 261 

sels, which would require the permanent employ- 
ment of naval officers and seamen. It was Mr. Jef- 
ferson's plan, that in time of peace these gunboats 
should be hauled up under sheds, erected for the 
purpose on the sea-shore ; and that in war time they 
should be fitted for service, and manned with a mar- 
itime militia, enlisted temporarily for the purpose. 
This scheme was violently attacked, and in fact it 
proved a failure. Mr. Jefferson employed Thomas 
Paine to write in defence of it. He certainly wrote 
very ingeniously, but, in spite of his logic, the pub- 
lic and the men of experience remained incredulous, 
and " when, soon afterwards, many of the gunboats 
were driven ashore in a tempest, or were otherwise 
destroved, no one seemed to regard their loss as a 
misfortune, nor has any attempt been since made to 
replace them." In these things he made great mis- 
takes, partly because he limited his views from ill- 
conceived motives of economy, and partly because 
of a wise fear of laying the foundations of great and 
permanent military and naval establishments. And 
thus it was that he left his country's commerce and 
seamen defenceless on the ocean. 

2. He promoted the repeal of the Judiciary Act. 

This swept off forever Mr. Adams's " Midnight 
Judges,"* and established an admirable precedent, 

* Jefferson had always looked upon this act of Mr. Adams as 
personally unkind to himself. See his letter from Washington, June 
13, 1804, to Mrs. Adams. Randall, iii. 105. 



262 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

which will have its due weight at some future 
day. 

From his earliest days of public life he had always 
known that judges were but men, and that they 
were affected with weakness and infirmity, with 
prejudice and party spirit, like as other men are.* 
In 1778 he had attempted to provide, that in the 
Chancerv Court of Virginia, all matters of fact should 
be tried by a jury, in the same manner as in the 
courts of law. But here he was defeated by an 
adroit amendment proposed by Mr. Pendleton, f It 
was one of his objections to the Constitution of the 
United States, that the decisions of the judges of 

* Works, vii. 178. Our judges are as honest as other men are, 
and not more so. ... Their maxim is, Boni judicis ampliare 
jurisdietionem. 

Works, iii. 81. To the Abbe Arnoud, Paris, July 19, 1789. " We 
all know that permanent judges acquire an esprit de corps; that 
being known, they are liable to be tempted by bribery; that they are 
misled by favor, by relationship, by a spirit of party, by a devotion 
to legislative or executive power ; that it is better to leave a cause to 
the decision of cross and pile than to that of a judge biassed to one 
side ; and that the decision of twelve honest men gives still a better 
hope of right than cross and pile does. It is in-the power, therefore, 
of the juries, if they think permanent judges are under any bias 
whatever, in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as 
well as the fact. They never exercise this power, but when they 
suspect partiality in the judges; and by the exercise of this power 
they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty. Were I 
called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the 
legislative or judiciary departments, I would say it is better to leave 
them out of the legislative." 

t Works, i. 37. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 263 

the National Courts were not subject to the same 
qualified negative of the Executive power as are all 
the acts of Congress.* In his Autobiography he 
writes, "Nothing could be more salutary there [in 
England] than a change to the tenure [of the judges] 
of good behavior, and the question of good be- 
havior left to the vote of a simple majority in the 
two Houses of Parliament." f In his first annual 
message, as President, to Congress, he says that the 
papers he lays before them will enable them " to 
judge of the proportion which the institution [Unit- 
ed States Supreme Court] bears to the business it 
has to perform." J In a letter to Mr. Kerchival § 
he objects to the independence of the Judiciary, and 
affirms that they ought to have been elected. " The 
judges of Connecticut," says he, "have been chosen 
by the people for nearly two centuries, and I believe 
that there has never hardly been an instance of 
change." He proceeds, and remarks that " if preju- 
dice is still to prevail . . . against the vital prin- 
ciple of periodical election of judges by the people, 
... let us retain the power of removal on the 
concurrence of the executive and legislative branch- 
es, and nomination by the Executive alone. Nomi- 
nation to office is an Executive function. To leave 
it to the legislature, as we do, is a violation of 

* Works, ii 329. t Works, i. 81. 

X Works, viii. 13. § Works, vii. 12. 



264 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

the principle of the separation of powers." Also, in 
1799, he writes,* " The judiciary is alone and single- 
handed in its assaults upon the Constitution, but its 
assaults are more sure and deadly, as from an agent 
seemingly passive and unassuming ; " and to Judge 
Johnson,f "This practice [of the Supreme Court 
of the United States] of travelling out of the case 
to prescribe what the law would be in a moot case 
not before the court, is very irregular and very 
censurable. ... In the Marbury Case, the Chief 
Justice went on to lay down what the law would 
have been had the court jurisdiction of the case. 
. . . The object was clearly to instruct any other 
court, having the jurisdiction, what they should do 
if Marbury should apply to them/' And to Mr. 
Barry,| in 1822, he writes, "We already see the 
power installed for life, responsible to no authority 
(for impeachment is not even a scarecrow), advan- 
cing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great 
object of consolidation." To Edward Livingston, in 
1825, § "One single object, if your provision attains 
it, will entitle you to the endless gratitude of society, 
— that of restraining judges from usurping legislation. 
With no body of men is this restraint more wanting 
than with the judges of what is called our General 
Government, but what I call our Foreign department. 

* Tucker, ii. 436. t Works, vii. 295. 

t Works, vii. 256. § Works, vii. 403. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 265 

They are practising on the Constitution by infer- 
ences. . . . This member of the government was 
at first considered the most harmless and help- 
less of all its organs. But it has proved that the 
power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by 
sapping and mining, slowly and without alarm, the 
foundations of the Constitution, can do what open 
force would not dare to attempt." There are many 
other better known and more frequently quoted pas- 
sages to the same purpose.* And to show that Mr. 
Jefferson's fear of the despotism of the Judiciary was 
by no means unfounded, read a letter from a dis- 
tinguished Federalist, Oliver Wolcott (then Secre- 
tary of the United States Treasury), to his friend 
Fisher Ames, which bears date 29th of December, 
1799: " There is no way [for the General Govern- 
ment] to combat the State opposition but by an 
efficient and extended organization of judges, magis- 
trates, and other civil officers." Thus it seems that 
Mr. Jefferson was, during his whole political life, 
w r ell aware of those tendencies which would make 
the Judiciary, to use his own language, "a despotic 
branch." 

3. He caused to be abolished all the internal and 
direct taxes which had, before his Administration, 

* For these and other passages, see Tucker, ii. 112. Works, iv. 
561; v. 549; vi. 462; vii. 134, 178, 192, 199, 216, 278, 322, 403. 
Randall, iii. 124, 636. 



266 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

been levied by the Government of the United States. 
They consisted of taxes, or excise, on stills, domes- 
tic spirits, refined sugars, licenses to keep shops, 
sales at auction, and on carriages, stamped vellum, 
parchment, &c. They were abolished after the first 
day of June, 1802. Meantime, and during their col- 
lection, they had excited such opinions and feelings 
as were expressed in Mr. Jefferson's letter to Mr. 
Madison, dated December 28, 1794: "The excise 
law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit 
it by the Constitution; the second, to act on that ad- 
mission; the third, and last, will be to make it the 
instrument of dismembering the Union, and setting us 
all afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to. 
. . . The detestation of the excise law is universal, 
and has now associated to it a detestation of the 
Government, and [the information] that a separation 
which, perhaps, was a very distant and problematical 
event, is now near and certain, and determined in 
the mind of every man." These taxes had after- 
wards caused the famous Whiskey Insurrection in 
Pennsylvania in 1794, which at that time seemed as 
seriousty to threaten the stability of our Union as 
any political disturbances that have since taken place. 
The entire amount which these excise and direct 
taxes brought into the treasury of the United States 
was but six hundred thousand dollars per annum ; 
that is to say, the gross revenue was one million of 



THOMAS JEFFEESON. 267 

dollars, and the cost of its collection was four hun- 
dred thousand dollars. As Mr. Jefferson said, "By 
suppressing at once the whole internal taxes, we 
abolish three fourths of the offices now existing 
and spread over the land." It was certainly a wise 
measure of administration and pacification. 

4. He pardoned all persons in jail for offences 
against the Alien and Sedition Laws, and discontin- 
ued all process against men who were waiting trial 
on charges of breaking those laws. He was clearly 
of opinion that these wicked laws were unconstitu- 
tional, and he went forward promptly and boldly to 
remedy the injustice which they had so uselessly oc- 
casioned, 

5. He secured the acquisition of the territory of 
Louisiana by negotiation and purchase. 

This was a success of the greatest importance to 
the security and to the prosperity of this country. 
And by no one could it have been attained with 
more 'foresight and skill, or by more wise use of 
fortunate opportunities, than were exhibited by Mr. 
Jefferson before and during the events of the nego- 
tiation. 

April 18, 1802, President Jefferson writes to 
Robert R. Livingston, "The cession of Louisiana and 
the Floridas by Spain to France works most sorely 
on the United States. ... It reverses our political 
relations, and will form a new epoch in our political 



268 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

coarse. . . . We have ever looked to her [France] 
as our natural friend. . . . There is on the globe 
one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural 
and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through 
which the produce of three eighths of our territory 
must pass. . . . France, placing herself in that 
door, at once assumes to us the attitude of defiance. 
Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her 
pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce 
her to increase our facilities there. . . . Not so can 
it ever be in the hands of France. The impetuosity 
of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her 
character, . . . render it impossible that France and 
the United States can continue long friends when 
they meet in so irritable a position. The day that 
France takes possession of New Orleans, . . . from 
that moment we must marry ourselves to the British 
fleet and nation. We must turn all our attention 
to a maritime force, for which our resources place 
us on very high ground." 

Such was his statement of the position of affairs at 
the time when he so wisely initiated the measures 
which were to secure the vast territories of the West 
to the United States. On his part everything was 
ready and prepared to receive the gift of what was 
then for the most part a wilderness, but which he 
knew would soon become of inestimable importance 
to the peace and welfare of his country. Very quick- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 269 

]y, sooner than he could have hoped or dreamed, the 
situation changed. First Consul Bonaparte suddenly 
decided to break the Peace of Amiens with England. 
As a preparation for so doing, and to raise means for 
his immense projects, it became necessary for him 
to make sale of Louisiana to the party who would 
pay him the most for it ; for he well knew that such 
property as France had in Louisiana would not be 
worth two months' purchase after his war should be 
declared. Therefore it was that, in the early sum- 
mer of 1803 (the treaty having been concluded 30th 
of April of that year), President Jefferson was able 
to accept the congratulations of his friends on the 
acquisition of Louisiana. "The territory acquired," 
says. he, "as it includes all the waters of the Missouri 
and Mississippi, has more than doubled the area of 
the United States." 

In this connection Mr. Jefferson has been much 
blamed for the addition of Louisiana to the terri- 
tories of the United States without any constitu- 
tional authority. It was his own opinion, never 
concealed by him, that an amendment of the Con- 
stitution was necessary to consummate the effect of 
his negotiations. The same idea frequently ap- 
peared in his correspondence, and even the forms 
of the amendments to the Constitution proposed by 
him, to authorize the acquisitions of Louisiana and 
Florida, were more than once recorded. The 



270 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

importance of promptly concluding this valuable 
purchase, or the overruling influence of political 
friends, seems to have extinguished these constitu- 
tional scruples, which were really and earnestly enter- 
tained by him. It is the more to be regretted that he 
who had boasted, "I never had an opinion in politics 
which I was afraid to own," should not, on this 
important occasion, and when President of the United 
States, have required the respect which he himself 
thought due to the Constitution, to have been ob- 
served. It would have given the weight of his great 
name to an honest precedent, and it might have made 
impossible the juggling tricks of diplomacy whereby 
Texas afterwards became annexed to the United 
States.* 

* Works, iv. 506. " When I consider that the limits of the United 
States are precisely fixed by the treaty of 1783, that the Constitu- 
tion declares itself to be made for the United States, I cannot help 
believing the intention was not to permit Congress to admit into the 
Union new States which should be formed out of the Territory for 
which, and under whose authority alone, they were then acting. I 
do not believe it was meant they might receive England, Ireland, 
Holland, &c, into it, which would be the case on your construction. 
When an instrument admits two constructions, ... I prefer that 
which is safe and precise. . . . Our peculiar security is in the 
possession of a written Constitution." Also see iv. 503, his letter 
to the Secretary of State, August 25, 1803, in which he proposes the 
following form of " Amendment to the Constitution necessary in the 
case of Louisiana : " " Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United 
States, is made a part of the United States. Its white inhabitants 
shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 271 

6. He imposed the Embargo in 1807. 

This measure also is to be considered the act of 
Mr. Jefferson, in a particular manner, and was in- 
itiated by him in his special message of December 18, 
1807.* England, predominant at sea, had destroyed 
the French naval power, and to aggravate the French 
commercial embarrassments to the utmost, had re- 
sorted to extreme and odious pretensions, claiming 
the penalties of blockade against neutral vessels pro- 
ceeding to or from seaports where no actual block- 
ade was maintained by her. In the end, a contention 
of Decrees, issued by the Emperor of France, and of 
Orders in Council, proclaimed by the government of 
England, had brought things to such a pass that the 
neutral vessels of the United States could not con- 
tinue their established commerce in any direction 
without being subject to capture either by the naval 
powers and privateers of England or of France. If 
they made any voyage to England or to English 
possessions, or allowed themselves to be searched 

same footing with other citizens of the United States in analogous 
situations." 

Works, iv. p. 500. August 12, 1803, he wrote to Judge Brecken- 
ridge, " The Constitution has made no provision for our holding 
foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our 
Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so 
much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond 
the Constitution." 

* Works, viii. 89. 



272 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

or visited by any English vessel of war, the Emperor 
of France claimed the right to capture and confiscate 
them. If they made any voyage to any part of the 
Continent of Europe, the whole of which was then 
•under the domination of France, in that case the in- 
numerable cruisers of England intervened, and made 
what they called lawful prize of American ships. 
The situation was such that it seemed to force a war 
upon the country, for which it was by no means 
prepared, and which it could in no way afford. 
And, moreover, even had America decided to de- 
clare a war, the dilemma was serious, whether it 
ought to be declared against France or against Eng- 
land. The action of each Government had been 
towards us equally aggressive in principle and almost 
equally ruinous in practice. But France had been to 
us, during the Revolutionary struggles of thirty years 
before, our stanch and profitable friend, and neither 
the ill treatment of her more recent Governments, nor 
the haughty injustice of some of their powerful min- 
isters in promoting the unjust confiscation of our 
ships, nor the venal corruption of others in holding 
out their hands to our envoys for secret bribes, could 
make our country forget how great was our debt of 
gratitude to France. Yet, on the other part, the 
temptation was great to uphold the policy of Eng- 
land. By so doing, a very considerable part of our 
commerce would have been preserved with England, 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 273 

and we should have enjoyed a considerable share of 
the English carrying trade. And this was the view 
taken by the Eastern and Northern States, by leading 
Federalists, and by all those who had great sympathy 
with England as the champion of Liberty, and the 
efficient leader of the combination which she alone 
could maintain against the enlarging tyranny of 
Bonaparte. Thus it was, our commerce extended, 
our vessels captured, both on seas and in port, by 
authorities both English and French, under pretences 
which had no support from the law of nations, or any 
maritime law. 

Mr. Jefferson found the solution of all these dif- 
ficulties in the Embargo, which forbade to American 
ships and merchants all foreign commerce whatever. 
Under the circumstances it may be justified as a wise 
measure of temporary relief and preparation. But 
the hurried manner in which it was forced upon the 
country, and the unnecessarily long period of its 
continuance, until their distresses had nearly com- 
pelled the commercial States to rebellion and seces- 
sion, is not easily to be justified, nor would in any 
recent times have been considered as otherwise than 
de£radin2r to our national honor. 

On the 10th of November, 1807, the ship Horizon, 

which had been stranded on the French coast by 

stress of weather, was condemned as a prize by the 

French courts, because she had English produce on 

18 



274 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

board, and this decree was upheld and justified by 
the French Government. The day after, November 
11, the Order in Council was passed, by which Great 
Britain prohibited all trade whatever with France, 
or with her allies ; that is to say, with the whole 
Continent of Europe. Immediately on receipt of 
intelligence of these facts, on the 18th of December, 
1807, Mr. Jefferson sent to Congress his message 
recommending the Embargo. The bill was passed 
though the Senate, with closed doors, after only four 
hours' debate. It was also forced through the House 
of Representatives in like maimer, though not with 
equal speed, and became a law on the 22d of Decem- 
ber. No notice was given, nor was any opportunity 
for consultation or explanation afforded to the numer- 
ous merchants and ship-owners who were so deeply 
interested in the measure, and who were thus de- 
prived of their lawful business and property. It 
seemed as if the despotic and arbitrary Decrees 
dictated by the French Emperor and by the British 
Council, were to be imitated by the first President of 
the United States who was by eminence entitled a 
" Republican ; " with this difference only, that where- 
as the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, and the British 
Orders, were aimed as measures of retaliation against 
enemies, our Embargo was so directed as to invade 
the rights, oppress the commerce, and destroy the 
fortunes and subsistence of our own citizens. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 275 

Mr. Jefferson's own explanation and justification 
may be found in several passages of his writings. In 
his reply to an address of Tammany Society, Febru- 
ary 29, 1808,* less than ten weeks after the passage 
of the bill : " There can be no question in a mind 
truly American whether it is best to send our citizens 
and property into certain captivity, and then wage 
war for their recovery, or to keep them at home, and 
to turn seriously to that policy which plants the 
manufacturer and the husbandman side by side, and 
establishes' at the door of every one that exchange of 
mutual labors and comforts which we have hitherto 
sought in distant regions, and under perpetual risk of 
broils with them." j November 21, of the same year, 
he writes, " By withdrawing a while from the ocean 
we have suffered some loss, but we have gathered 
home our immense capital. . . . We have saved 
our seamen from the jails of Europe, and gained time 
to prepare for defence. . . . Submission and 
tribute, if that be our choice, are no baser now than 
at the date of the Embargo." 

As time went on the Embargo became exceedingly 
oppressive to all the commercial interests of the 
country, and they were the less patient of its effects 
because of the sudden manner in which it had been 
forced upon them. And in the winter of 1809, after 
an interview with John Quincy Adams, which con- 

* Works, viii. 127. t Works, viii. 140. 



276 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

vinced him of an extreme dissatisfaction in the East- 
ern States, bordering upon rebellion, he was obliged 
to submit to its repeal, which took effect on the 4th 
of March in that year. As to its repeal, which was 
carried sorely against his own personal opinion, he 
writes to General Armstrong, on the 5th of March,* 
"After fifteen months' continuance, it is now dis- 
continued, because, losing fifty millions of dollars of 
exports annually by it, it costs more than war, which 
might be carried on for a third of that, besides what 
might be got by reprisal. War, therefore, must fol- 
low if the Edicts are not repealed before the meeting 
of Congress in May." And also to Mr. Short, three 
days later, he says, "Our Embargo has worked hard. 
It has, in fact, federalized three of the New England 
States. We have substituted for it a non-intercourse 
with France and England and their dependencies, and 
a trade to all other places. It is probable that the bel- 
ligerents will take our vessels under their Edicts, in 
which case we shall probably declare war against 
them." 

On the .4th of March, 1809, the last day of Mr. 
Jefferson's Presidency, the Embargo ceased to exist. 
Originally it may have been a measure of reasonable 
discretion, but it had been protracted so as to have 
produced great distress to those who were engaged 
in commerce and in shipping, and through large 

* Works, v. 433. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 277 

districts of country it had cooled the friends and 
heated the enemies of the Democratic party. Mr. 
Jefferson himself could never have realized the im- 
portance of commerce and navigation to his country. 
In October 13, 1785, he writes to Count Hogendorp,* 
"You ask what 1 think on the expediency of encoura- 
ging our States to be commercial. Were I to in- 
dulge my own theory, I should wish them to practise 
neither commerce nor navigation, but to stand, with 
respect to Europe, precisely on the footing of China. 
We should thus avoid wars, and all our citizens would 
be husbandmen." Such ideas he seems to have en- 
tertained, at least until the close of his political life ; 
nor does he ever appear to have been convinced until 
his interview with John Quincy Adams, before al- 
luded to, of the extreme and intolerable pressure with 
which his Embargo weighed down some of the srreat- 
est and most important interests of his country. 

Mr. Jefferson's public life was now brought to a 
close. He had attended the inauguration of his friend, 
James Madison, his successor in the Presidency, and 
still a vigorous man of sixty-six years of age. He 
retired to Monticello about the middle of March, 
able to accomplish the last three days of his journey 
there on horseback. Here he resided during the 
remaining seventeen years of his life. 

Mr. Jefferson cannot be reproached with any fond- 

* Works, i. 465. 



278 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

ness for money, or for any disposition unduly to 
hoard or to accumulate it. His expenditures were 
always those of a generous and liberal mind. In 
his youth, when it could not have been the custom for 
young" men to collect a library, we find that he lost, 
by the burning of his house at Shad well, books 
which cost him about a thousand dollars. Not 
discouraged by this, during all his active life he had 
purchased books in literature, science, history, diplo- 
macy, the classics, belles-lettres, such as were impor- 
tant to his mental culture. The hospitalities of his 
mansion, too, had always been without stint or bound, 
according to the custom of the country in which he 
lived, and this the attraction of his distinguished and 
agreeable social qualities, and of his important politi- 
cal position, had rendered very burdensome to a for- 
tune of an amount which could never have been con- 
sidered very large, and of a nature which could only 
have been made to yield any considerable income by 
a degree of care and attention which he was never in 
a position to afford. In his public life he had always 
considered it due to the dignity of his high political 
positions to apportion his expenses in a liberal manner 
for hospitality, service,. and equipage. And, in fact, 
during his time, in memory of the aristocratic insti- 
tutions which had existed, and of the circumstances 
of forms and dignities with which Washington had 
recently surrounded himself, it would have hardly 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 279 

been possible for him to make any savings, either 
from the allowances of his official employments or 
from the income of his private fortune. 

He returned, then, to Monticello in declining life, 
with a moderate income, and with great demands upon 
it. The principal occupations of his remaining years 
were the education of his grandchildren, who lived 
with him, the management of his own estates, hospi- 
talities to numerous guests, and, most of all, the writ- 
ing of replies to the multitude of letters with which 
ho was quite overburdened and almost overwhelmed. 
Thus for sixteen years he passed his time, for the 
most part in the daily duties and the daily pleasures 
of the life of a country gentleman. The order of his 
life was at times shaded and darkened by serious 
anxieties as to his pecuniary affairs. These severely 
pressed upon him during his later years, not so much 
by reason of his own improvidence, as of failure on 
the part of friends whom he had trusted. Yet, not- 
withstanding these things, he still preserved his phi- 
losophy and serenity of mind, and made such arrange- 
ments as were possible to meet his obligations and 
to preserve his independence. During the period 
from 1817 to 1826, he had also found very serious 
and continued occupation in founding the establish- 
ment of the University of Virginia. He had re- 
sumed the projects of his youth, which were for the 
education of all classes of white people. By his 



280 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

influence, constantly and unremittingly exhibited, the 
Legislature of his State had made grants, not indeed 
so large as he demanded, but still in large and liberal 
measure, for the purposes of Education, generally for 
the founding of the University of Virginia. The con- 
trol and superintendence of this establishment in its 
earlier years, indeed its initiation and foundation, 
were confided by the State to a Board of Visitors, 
upon which were glad to serve the most distinguished 
men of Virginia, with Mr. Jefferson as their Rector 
and Chief. To Mr. Jefferson it was mainly due that 
the most able and learned men were induced to serve 
as Professors in this Institution, and that its Consti- 
tution was of the most liberal character. 

The year 1826 found him at the crisis of his for- 
tunes and of his life. Eighty-three years old, infirm 
of body, the vigor of his mind failing, the embar- 
rassments of his pecuniary affairs increasing, and 
suddenly much aggravated by an unexpected loss of 
considerable amount, he found himself obliged to con- 
sider how he could so dispose of his remaining prop- 
erty as to pay his debts and supply the necessities 
of living. While he was engaged in proposing 
such arrangements as occurred to him, and while his 
private and public friends and the Legislatures of 
some of the States were occupied in devising meas- 
ures for the pecuniary relief of one to whom they 
were so much indebted, worn with age, and with 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 281 

cares and disorders, he quietly expired, a little after 
noon, on the 4th of July, 1826 ; about four hours 
before the death of his compatriot and friend, John 
Adams, and just fifty years after himself and the 
same John Adams had signed that Declaration which, 
on the 4th of July, 1776, announced to the world the 
Independence of America. 

Mr. Jefferson had intellectual talents greatly supe- 
rior to the common mass of men, and for the times 
his opportunities of culture in youth were admirable. 
It was a special advantage to him to have begun with 
excellent accademic learning in early life, and at col- 
lege to have felt the quickening influence of an able 
man like Professor Small, well trained in scholarship, 
and cherishing a taste for science and literature. Mr. 
Jefferson early learned the Latin, Greek, French, 
Spanish, and Italian languages, and showed a fond- 
ness for reading and study not common in Virginia, 
and quite uncommon in any part of America, for a 
young man who had such independent control of time 
and means as he had. 

All his life he associated, by preference, with able 
men and educated men. His inherited property 
enabled him to buy books, which, to the value of 
one thousand' dollars, were burned with his -house 
at Shadwell, when he was twenty-two years old. 
He could indulge his taste for music. He was not 



282 THQMAS JEFFERSON. 

forced by the humble circumstances of his younger 
days to print books like Franklin, to survey lands 
like Washington, or to keep school like Adams. But 
I cannot think his mind a great one. I cannot point 
out any name of those times which may stand in the 
Ions: interval between the names of Franklin and 
John Adams. In the shorter space between Adams 
and Jefferson there were many. Some of them 
in power and force nearly approached, and almost 
equalled Adams. There was a certain lack of solidi- 
ty : his intellect was not very profound, not very 
comprehensive. Intelligent, able, adroit as he was, 
his success as an intellectual man was far from be- 
ing entire or complete. He exhibited no spark 
of genius, nor any remarkable degree of original 
natural talent. 

His strength lay in his understanding the practical 
power. He learned affairs quickly. He remem- 
bered well. He was fond of details in all things. 
He kept a Diary, in wdiich he noted systematically 
all sorts of facts. He was a nice observer of Nature, 
and as well as his opportunities permitted he culti- 
vated the sciences of Botany, Zoology, Geology. 

Ardent in his feelings, quick in his apprehension, 
and rapid in his conclusions, his judgment does not 
appear to have been altogether sound and reliable. 

As to his imagination, he seems to have had less 
than the average of educated men ; and though fond 



THOMAS JEFFEESON". 283 

of beauty and simplicity in all forms, there yet 
seemed to be little of the creative power of poetry 
in him. In his youth he loved to read poetry, but 
in his old age he laid it aside for the most part, re- 
taining only his fondness for Homer, Hesiod, Sopho- 
cles, Euripides, and the Greek and Latin classics 
generally. In answer to a letter making inquiries 
as to a proper course for education for females, he 
writes, in 1818, " Too much poetry should not be in- 
dulged. Homer is useful for forming style and taste. 
Pope, Dryden, Thomson, and Shakspeare, and of the 
French, Moliere, Racine, the Corneilles, may be read 
with pleasure and improvement." 

In literature he disliked fiction generally. Don 
Quixote was a favorite in his youth ; so were a few 
pastoral and lyric writers ; but he never learned to 
admire Byron, Campbell, Southey, or Coleridge. 
Yet I find no American, during the Revolutionary 
period, whose intellectual life was so marked with 
good taste and aesthetic culture. His was a fine 
nature finely educated. He hated all coarseness, 
and in that respect was as modest as a maiden, any 
indelicacy in his presence causing him to blush even 
in old a^e. 

He had not great power of reason. In matters of 
science he was rather a dabbler than a philosopher, 
yet he had considerable love for science. He knew 
something of mathematics, and read thoughtful books. 



284 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

He disliked ethics and metaphysics, and had no tal- 
ent for either. He had no understanding of abstract 
and universal truth. He thought Plato a writer of 
nonsense, speaks of the "whimseys, the puerilities, 
and unintelligible jargon" of Plato's Republic, and 
says he often asked himself how the world could 
have so long consented to give reputation to such 
nonsense.* 

As an inventor he had some pretensions. But 
he was an inventor, not of new ideas, but of forms 
only. He had great skill in organizing ideas into 
institutions, and in influencing and marshalling men 
into parties. 

His administrative powers were neither great nor 
good. Though he always gave a certain degree of 
attention to his private affairs, yet they were never 
well managed. His own property and that brought 
him by his wife, w 7 ould have seemed sufficient to 
maintain an honorable independence ; and yet this 
estate, notwithstanding its large receipts from offi- 
cial salaries for many years, seems to have been con- 
stantly diminishing, as well during his absence from 
home as after his return to it. So, too, his capacity 
for administration, both as Governor of Virginia and 
as President of the United States, can by no means 
I be considered eminent. His conduct of the affairs 
of Virginia during the British invasion, when a 

* Tucker, ii. 356. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 285 

British army of fifteen hundred strong held his 
State for a year, however difficult may have been 
the circumstances, by no means adds to his reputa- 
tion. In the Presidenc}% it is now quite certain that 
his administrative ideas respecting the Army and the 
Military Academy, the Navy and the Gunboats, and 
the continuance of the Embargo, as an honorable 
measure less oppressive and more economical than 
war, were all great mistakes to have been made by 
the Head of the Government at that time. 

Let us now consider his moral character. 

He had a good deal of moral courage, though this 
was somewhat limited by his sensitiveness to public 
opinion.* He had not great physical courage, else 
the charge against him as Governor of Virginia could 
never have been made, and would have been more 
decisively repelled. His natural delicacy of nature 
gave him quick intuitions and rapid perceptions of 
the Right. These induced him even to avoid the 
theatre, to hate drunkenness, though he w r as by no 
means an ascetic, and to shun tobacco, swearing, 
gaming, and all indecency. But I think the charge 
that he was father of some of his own slaves is but 
too well founded. There is no instance of his hav- 
ing been engaged in any duel. His faults were vices 
of calculation, and not of passion. He was quick- 

* Works, iv. Ui ; Randall, ii. 183. 



286 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

tempered, earnest, and excitable, but at the same 
time he was free and outspoken, good-humored, and 
cheerful. Always hopeful, he for a long time 
thought the war of 1812 not likely to take place ; 
and after 1816 was quite sanguine that he could 
redeem his own private fortunes by successes in 
farming. In his earlier years he was confident that 
the American Revolution would turn out well ; and in 
his later life thought he should live to see the Virginia 
University attract five hundred or a thousand stu- 
dents. He was not vindictive. It is true he was 
not tolerant to Ideas, but he was tolerant to persons. 
He never made a political division into a personal 
difference.* He was not always quite sincere. He 
made great professions of love and respect to Wash- 
ington, while he, at the same time, sustained Freneau 
and Cal lender, Washington's vilest and most un- 
scruplous libellers. In the matters also of Thomas 
Paine's pamphlet, and of his having given Mr. Paine 
a passage to America in a public ship, his desire for 
popularity seems to have betrayed him into making 
undue apologies. The affair of his letter to Mazzei, 
which came to the public knowledge, and at which 
Washington w r as justly offended, affords another in- 
stance of explanations, which could not have been 
quite sincere.j He sometimes used harsh language. 

* Randall, iii. G36. 

t Jefferson's expression in the Mazzei letter, of " Samsons in the 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 287 

He calls Marshall's Life of Washington "a five-vol- 
umed libel " on the Democracy. Hamilton's Life is 
to be written by one " who to the bitterness of the 
President adds the rancor of the fiercest Federal- 
ism." It seems of him, as of Franklin, that he had 
lived in a bad moral atmosphere,* though born with 
a good and exact moral nature. He was of an ear- 
nest character, though he did not always seem to be 
so. He was not reverential of great men, and his 
temper was quite emancipated from the authority of 
great names. He had great powers of pleasing all 
that were about him, or that came near to him. 
He was never quarrelsome, or inclined to dispute. 
"Never had an enemy in Congress," says Mr. Ran- 
dall. He had many friends, and he kept their friend- 
ships, and always addressed himself to conduct 

field and Solomons in council," must have referred to Washing- 
ton. At the time of publication Jefferson wrote Madison, August 3, 
that he could not avow the Mazzei letter "without a personal dif- 
ference between General Washington and myself, whieh nothing be- 
fore the publication of this letter had ever done. It would embroil 
me also with all those with whom his character is still popular; 
that is to say, with nine tenths of the people of the United States." 
Hildreth, v. p. 55. 

" Mr. Jefferson was a consummate politician whenever he deemed 
a resort to policy expedient and allowable, and few men then had 
more penetratiou in fathoming the purposes of others or in conceal- 
ing his own." Tucker. 

* " L'accent du pays ou Ton est ne demeure dans l'esprit et dans 
le cceur, comme dans le langage." 



288 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

affairs in the smoothest and pleasantest manner. 
His perfectly good temper consistently manifested 
itself in every way. He was fond of young children. 
All the members of his family and his household 
were exceedingly attached to him. And his letters 
to his daughters and grandchildren, and even to Mr. 
and Mrs. Adams, exhibit his affectionate nature. 
Yet he was not a loving man, like Franklin or Madi- 
son ; rather he had great love of approbation, and 
great fear of censure, together with a mild, amiable, 
affectionate temper. 

Of Mr. Jefferson's relation to Slavery we have 
already seen something. His family biographer, Mr. 
Randall, sums up the whole by saying, "He was 
wholly opposed to Slavery on all grounds, and de- 
sired its abolition." * And, indeed, it is true that 
not many Republicans of the present day have prin- 
ciples more decided, or more thoroughly considered, 
as to the abstract right of the negro to freedom, than 
were uttered and written by Mr. Jefferson, from his 
earliest to his latest year. At his first entrance into 
the Legislature of Virginia, he attempted, but failed, 
to carry a bill giving to owners the right to free their 
slaves. Soon afterwards he writes, that "the Rights 
of human nature are deeply wounded by this prac- 
tice " [Slave .Trade]. On many occasions he sug- 
gested the abolition of Slavery in Virginia, by an act 

* Randall, iii. 667. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 289 

providing for the freedom of all the children of 
slaves born after a certain day. The provision 
which he proposed, excluding Slavery from all the 
Territory of the United States north of the thirty- 
first parallel of latitude, has already been cited. In 
his annual message to Congress, December 2, 1806, 
he declares, "I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on 
the approach of the period at which you may consti- 
tutionally interpose your authority to withdraw the 
citizens of the United States from all further partici- 
pation in those violations of human rights which have 
been so lon^ continued on the unoffending inhabit- 
ants of Africa." And in a letter written only seven 
weeks before his death (dated May 20, 1826), he 
says, "My sentiments [on the subject of Slavery] 
have been forty years before the public. . . . Al- 
though I shall not live to see them consummated, 
they will not die with me ; but, living or dying, 
they will always be in my most fervent prayer." 

In 1781, Tarleton, in his raid through Virginia, 
captured Monticello, compelled Mr. Jeiferson to fly, 
committed much waste upon his property, and car- 
ried off about thirty of his slaves. Seven years 
later, at Paris, Mr. Jefferson, writing to Dr. Gor- 
don, says, as to the carrying off of his slaves, "had 
this been to give them freedom he [Tarleton] 
would have done right." * 

* Works, ii. i2Q. 

19 



290 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

There is no distinguished writer of his time from 
whom the Abolitionists can more effectively quote. 
f You know that no one wishes more ardently to see 
an abolition, not only of the trade, but of the condi- 
tion of slavery." He earnestly desires " to see a 
good system commenced for raising the condition 
both of their [the negroes] body and mind to what 
it ought to be." And he believed the race capa- 
ble of improvement and enlightenment, and very 
possibly of self-government. 

" What an incomprehensible machine is man ! who 
can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and 
death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and 
the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose 
power supported him through his trial, and inflict 
on his fellow-man a bondage, one hour of which is 
fraught with more misery than ages of that which he 
rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must wait with 
patience the workings of an overruling Providence. 
I hope that that is preparing deliverance of these our 
suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears 
shall be full, when their groans shall have involved 
heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of Justice 
will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light 
and liberality among their oppressors, or, at length, 
by His exterminating thunder manifest His attention 
to the things of this world, and [show] that they are 
not left to the guidance of a blind fatality." And 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 291 

what can be more graphic than the often-cited pas- 
sage from his Works, on Virginia, respecting slave- 
ry. "The parent storms, the child looks on, catches 
the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the 
circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst 
of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily 
exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it 
with odious peculiarities. . . . Indeed, I tremble 
for my country when I reflect that God is just. 
. . . The Almighty has no attribute which can take 
side with us in such a contest." * 

Some person asked Mr. Jefferson ." whether he had 
made any change in his religion." He replied, "Say 
nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and 
myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be 
sought in my life ; if that has been honest and beau- 
tiful to society, the religion which has regulated it 
cannot be a bad one." f We have seen that Mr. 
Jefferson was a profound and independent thinker ; 
he called no man master, and among the various 
sectarians of his day, who would not allow the name 
of Christian to each other, it cannot be expected that 
it should have been commonly allowed to him. Yet 
surely there was a certain piety, and some depth of 
religious feeling in the man. The book most fre- 
quently chosen for reading before he went to bed 
was a collection of extracts from the Bible. In 

* Works, viii. 403, 404. f Works, vii. 55. 



292 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

1803, when President of the United States, and 
overwhelmed with business, he extracted from the 
New Testament such passages as he believed to have 
come from the lips of Jesus Christ, and arranged 
them in a small volume. Of this he says, " A more 
beautiful or more precious morsel of ethics I have 
never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a 
real Christian ; that is to say, a disciple of the doc- 
trines of Jesus ; very different from the Platonists, 
who call me Infidel and themselves Christians and 
teachers of the Gospel, while they draw all their 
characteristic dogmas from what its Author never 
said or saw." 

He said of himself that he had never meditated a 
specific creed ; and this is confirmed by what he in 
another place refers to as his religious creed on 
paper, which was contained in a writing to Dr. Ben- 
jamin Rush, dated April 21, 1803.* It was not the 
statement of any creed, but a very general criticism 
of the progress of mankind. He well knew that his 
religious ideas were unpopular, and probably con- 
sidered them, however suitable to his own intellec- 
tual power and independence, not necessarily to be 
adopted by others. Therefore, though he wrote to 
his daughter, Mrs. Randolph, saying, "I have placed 
my religious creed on paper, that my family should 
be enabled to estimate the libels published against 

* Works, iv. 479. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 293 

me on this subject," yet he never made any attack 
on the religious faith of any sect, nor ever attempted 
to make any proselyte to his own. He never com- 
municated his religious belief to more than half a 
dozen persons. His oldest grandson writes, "Of his 
peculiar religious views his family know no more 
than the world." He said, " It was a subject each was 
religiously bound to study assiduously for himself, 
unbiassed by the opinions of others. It was a matter 
solely of conscience. After thorough investigation, 
they were responsible for the righteousness, but not 
for the rightfulness, of their opinions. That the 
expression of his opinion might influence theirs, and 
that therefore he would not give it." * 

An anecdote is told of his once passing the even- 
ing at Ford's Tavern, as he was travelling in the 
interior of Virginia, with a clergyman who had no 
acquaintance with him. While the topic of conver- 
sation was mechanical, the stranger thought him to 
be an engineer ; when agricultural, he believed him 
to be a farmer ; but when the topic of religion was 
broached, the clergyman considered that his com- 
panion must be another clergyman, though without 
making up his mind of what particular persuasion. 
Afterwards the clergyman inquired of the landlord 
the name of his fellow-guest. " What ! don't you 
know the Squire? That was Mr. Jefferson," was the 

* Randall, iii. 561. 



294 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

reply. "Not President Jefferson!" "Yes, Presi- 
dent Jefferson ! " " Why ! " exclaimed the clergyman, 
"I tell you that was neither an atheist nor an irre- 
ligious man. One of juster sentiments I never met 
with." * And so it is ; if we would form an opinion 
as to his religion (and would it not be well in the 
case of others as well as of himself?) , we must seek 
its evidence in his life. If that was honest and beau- 
tiful to society, the religion which regulated it cannot 
have been a bad one. 

Of all those who controlled the helm of affairs 
during the time of the Revolution, and while the Con- 
stitution and the forms of our National and State 
Institutions were carefully organized, there is none 
who has been more generally popular, more common- 
ly beloved, more usually believed to be necessary to 
the Legislation and Administration of his country, 
than Thomas Jefferson. It may not be said of him 
that of all those famous men he could least have been 
spared ; for in the rare and great qualities for pa- 
tiently and wisely conducting the vast affairs of State 
and Nation in pressing emergencies, he seems to 
have been wanting. But his grand merit was this — 
that while his powerful opponents favored a strong 
government, and believed it necessary thereby to 
repress what they called the lower classes, he, Jef- 

* Randall, iii. 345. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 21)5 

ferson, believed in Humanity; believed in a true 
Democracy. He respected labor and education, and 
upheld the right to education of all men. These 
were the Ideas in which he was far in advance of all 
the considerable men, whether of his State or of his 
Nation — ideas which he illustrated through long 
years of his life and conduct. The great debt that 
the Nation owes to him is this — that he so ably .and 
consistently advocated these needful opinions, that 
he made himself the head and the hand of the great 
party that carried these ideas into power, that put 
an end to all possibility of class government, made 
naturalization easy, extended the suffrage and applied 
it to judicial office, opened a slid wider and better 
education to all, and (juicily inaugurated reforms, yet 
incomplete, of which we have the benefit to this day, 
and which, hut for him, we might not have won 
against the party of Strong Government, except l>y 
a difficult and painful Revolution. 



INDEX 



FRANKLIN. 

PAGE 

Adams, John. 26, 32 

Adams, Matthew 21 

Adams, Samuel. ......... 26 

A great Organizer 40 

A great Picture. . 23 

Almanac, Poor Richard's. 24 

A master Printer. ......... 21 

Analysis of Character and Intellect 37, 39 

An old Man, but active 31 

A Pacificator 46, 48 

Appeared in a Suit of Manchester Velvet 30 

Appointed Agent for Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. 28 

"Billy." -60 

Birthplace 13 

Books 19, 23 

Born in Boston. . 16 

Borrows Cannon of Governor Clinton. . . . . .47 

Boy of Fourteen 18, 23 

Braddock, General 27 

Brought before the Privy Council of King of England. . 29 

Burial Place 17 

Buys Burton's Historical Collections 38 

Character 36, 54 

Children 17 

Chosen Member of First Colonial Congress 27 

" Citizens of eminent Gravity." 28 

(297) 



298 INDEX. 

Clerk of the General Assembly. 24 

Colleges confer Honors. . . . • • • • 25, 26 

Constructive as well as inventive 40 

Contemporaries. . . . • • • • • • 36 

Correspondence. . . • • • • • • .25 

Cushing, Mr .. 

Daughter 18 

Deceived by Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania. . . . 16 

Devout Spirit 58 

Died at Philadelphia 17 

Diplomatic Labors 65 

Disliked by the British Government 27 

Drafting the Declaration of Independence 26 

Editor of his Brother's Newspaper 22 

Education 18 

Endeavors to prevent Privateering 32, 33 

Enemies. 66 

Enrolled Men for Defence of Quaker City. . . . .42 

" Errata " given by himself. .52 

Established first American Free School out of New England. . 42 

Father and Mother. . . 19 

Fifteenth Child of the Tallow Chandler 14 

Filled various Offices. 24 

First Meal in Philadelphia 16 

Founder of the first Scientific Association on this Continent. . 42 

General Braddock 27 

Genius for Creation and Administration. .... 43 

Governor Hutchins-on. 28, 29 

Grandmother of Franklin bought for twenty Pounds. . . 20 

Greatest Discovery of the Century 24 

Gunpowder . • 40 

His illegitimate Son . 17 

Hugh Peters 19, 20 

Hutchinson and Oliver Letters. . . . . . . 29 

Insulted by the King's Solicitor. 29 

Intellect 36, 37 



INDEX. 299 

In the Field near Philadelphia. 23, 24 

Invented a Phonographic Alphabet. ..... 41 

Intimacies with Religious Men. . . . . . .58 

Jackson, Mr., of Georgia. ....... 35 

James Franklin. 21 

Jay. . 32 

Jefferson 26, 32, 45 

Josiah Franklin 13 

Journeyman Printer in Philadelphia. 22 

Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania 16 

Knew how to conciliate. ........ 45 

Knew how to use the auspicious Moment 46, 47 

Last public Act. 34 

Last public Writing 35 

Lieutenant Governor Oliver. .....*. 28 

Little Inconsistencies 62 

Manages the Legislature of Pennsylvania. . . . .49 

Married 17 

Mary Morrell 19 

Minister to France. 17 

Miss Read 22, 51, 52 

Moral Powers. 47, 48 

National Gazette. 35 

Never revengeful or envious. 53 

New England Courant. .21 

New England Tories 29 

One of his most ingenious Works. 35 

Organized various Societies and Companies 42 

Peter Folger 19 

Petition to Congress. ........ 34 

Planned the Scheme of the Union 27 

Political Whimseys. 67 

Poor Richard's Almanac 63, 64 

Policy 49 

Popular Judgment . . . . 38 

Private Morals. ... 51 



300 INDEX. 

Quaker Fire Engine. . . 49 

Quaker Grain. 49 

Quarrelled with his Brother James 22 

Religious Views 56-60 

Sells his " Varses"in the Streets of Boston. ... 18 

Services to American Education 63 

Set on foot Military Expeditions 27, 28 

Sign of the Blue Ball 13 

Slavery in 1758. . ; 60 

Society for Abolition of Slavery 33 

Started first Magazine in America. 42 

Studied Languages 25 

Sydney Smith 16 

Testimony before House of Commons 28 

Twenty-third Article of Treaty 50, 51 

"The Peculiar Institution" defended 35 

Uncle Benjamin 20 

Various Contrivances and Suggestions. . . . 40, 41 

Wedderburn, Mr 29 

Whitefield's Orphan House 67, 68 

Wife died 17 

William Temple Eranklin. 17 

Whately 29 

Wrenching the Sceptre from Tyrants. 31 



INDEX. 301 



WASHINGTON. 

Administrative Talents 118, 119 

A good Organizer. . . . . . . . . .117 

A great Work before him. 108 

Alexander Hamilton. . .110 

Anxiety for the universal Welfare. ..... 106 

Appointed Commander-in-Chief of the American Forces. . . 79 
Appointments. . . . . . . . . .110 

Arnold 144 

Augustine Washington. 75 

Beginning of Florida War. . 139 

Benevolent and charitable. ....... 133 

Birth 76, 77 

Book of Surveys. 83 

Born a Slaveholder 136 

Boyhood and Youth. 80 

Bravery and Caution. 127 

Bridge's Creek. 75 

Burgoyne entrapped 104 

Cabal in the Army. 129 

Cabinet ' Ill 

Character 133. 134 

Chosen Delegate to Federal Congress 108 

Commander-in-Chief of the American Army. ... 96 

Commissions. .......... 78 

Compared with Franklin, Adams, &c 121 

Constitution. 109 

Cromwell and Washington. ..*.... 145 

Created an Army 144 

Crowning Virtue 130 

Death 80 

Defeat of General St. Clair 124 

Diary . . . 90, 93, 94 

Difficulties 102, 112, 119, 127, 128 

Discipline 88 

Dress 90 

Dr. Franklin 79, 104 



302 INDEX. 

Early Military Life 85 

Elected a Delegate to First General Congress. ... 79 
Enemies 104 

Faithful to himself. 132 

Farewell Address 115 

Father 79, 81 

Federal Party. . .142 

First Fugitive Slave. . . 140 

Fond of Form and Parade. 122 

Fondness for the Military Profession 82 

Franklin's Plan 107 

General Henry Lee 83 

General Lee 102 

General Ward 98 

Gerry, Mr. . . 109 

Governor Dinwiddie 8Q 

Hancock's Grudge against Adams 97 

Harsh Measures 129, 130 

Hasty Temper 123 

Hamilton's Influence. . . 122 

House of Burgesses 79, 95 

Ideas of Managing the Army 143 

Integrity * . . 130 

Intellect 114 

Intended Treason of General Lee 102 

Interest in Public Education. 107 

Jane Butler. 75 

Jealousy of the States 108 

Jumonville. 127 

Knew how to command and obey. . . . . . .133 

Lawrence Washington 75, 78 

Left School 82 

Letters 115 

Little Confidence in the People . 142 

Love of Approbation. 125 

"Lowland Beauty." . . . . . . . .83,84 



INDEX. 303 

Making a new Plough. 94 

Manuscript Books. 81, 126 

Married the Widow of Mr. Custis 78, 89 

Mary Ball 75 

Member of Second Congress 95 

Miss Carey 83 

Miss Grimes 83 

Moral Excellence • . . 121, 132 

Mother 84 

Mount Vernon 78, 89, 106, 141 

Mrs. Martha Custis. 78, 89, 133 

Natural Temperament 121 

Never understood New England 143, 144 

Nobility of Character 105, 106 

Not an Originator 116, 120 

No Vanity 126 

Obliged to create an Army. 99 

One of the Great Authorities in American Politics. . . 77 

Peace proclaimed in Camp. 105 

Peculiarities. 141 

Personal Appearance. 140, 141 

President of the Convention to frame a Constitution. . . 109 

President of the United States 79 

Public Surveyor 77, 110 

Quarrel in his Cabinet. . Ill 

Refused a Crown. ....... 132, 145 

Remark of Patrick Henry. 96 

Religious Character. . . . - . . . 134-136, 138 

Resolute Will 129 

Returns his Commission 105 

Reverence of the Red Man 146 

Richard Henry Lee 104 

Rules for Behavior 82 

Samuel Adams 79, 120 

Saturday a famous Day in American Annals 76 

School Privileges. 77, 81 



304 



INDEX. 



Sends to Marblehead for Gunpowder. . 
Sent to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston 
Seven Years' Apprenticeship in War. . 
Sixth Anniversary of Boston Massacre. . 

Slaves 

State of the Troops. .... 

Style of Living 

Sufferings of the Troops. 
Superiority of British Array. 



Taste for fine Dress. 

The first Man of his Type. 

" The Frontier Colonel." 

The Soldiers his Children. 

The sublimest Man in the World. 

Trials with his Army. 



Undue Influence of Hamilton. 
Used Fraud to spare Force. 



Various Schemes. .... 

Virginia Legislature. 

Volunteer in General Braddock's Army. 

Went to the West Indies. 

What he might have said. 

Who were regarded with Confidence. 

Williamsburg. ..... 

Writes to Lafayette. 



Youthful Flames. 



91, 



123 

89 

88 

. 100 

136-138 

98, 103 

90 

, 103 

99 



90, 91 
. 145 
86 
. 106 
126 
. 87 



142 

131 

107 

86 
85 

78 
139 
133 

89 
137 

83 



INDEX. 305 



JOHN ADAMS. 

Abby Smith's Education 162, 163 

Acts on his own Responsibility. ..... 194, 209 

Advice and Service. . . . . . . . .175 

Alien and Sedition Laws. ........ 195 

American Affairs in Confusion .179 

Appeals to the Dutch People 182, 183, 209 

Appointed Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Massachusetts. 178 

Appointed Commissioner. 184 

Appointed Minister to Great Britain. 181 

Art of Leading. ......... 174 

A Sentiment for Independence Day. 200 

Beaten at Election. . . . . . . . . 196 

Boston Massacre. 166 

Brace of Adamses 168 

Braintree 149, 151 

British Government. 170 

Broke with his Cabinet 193 

Bound by his Relation to his Party. .... 192, 193 

Career as a Politician and Diplomatist. . . . 179, 206, 207 

Character 200, 201 

Chief Acts of his Administration 192 

Chief Justice impeached. ....... 171, 208 

Childhood and Youth 151 

Closed Session of General Court 173 

Colonel John Quincy 159 

Courtship and Marriage 159, 162 

" Davila " Papers 189 

Death of his Wife 198 

Declaration of Independence 176, 214, 215, 218 

Defence of the Constitution . . 186 

Defended the British Soldiers 166, 208 

Delegates to American Congress • .173 

Diary 157, 213, 214, 220 

Difficult Part to perform. 174 

Dixwell 173 



306 INDEX. 

Declaration of Eights and Grievances 176, 204 

Dr. Willard 155 

Educational Helps 156 

Election Day. .169 

Executive of the United States. 187 

Ex-President in private Life 197 

Faithful, yet dishonored. ....... 197 

Favored a Naval and Military Academy 177, 205 

Federalists displeased 190 

Franklin. 183, 200, 201, 205, 210, 230 

French Court and American Minister 193 

Four great Trials 208 

Fiftieth Birthday of the Nation 200 

George Davie. . 194 

Governor Bernard 165 

Governor Shirley. . . 167 

Grandfather's Grandfather to the Second President. . . 149 
Grass growing on Long Wharf. . . . . . .172 

Great Piisk. . 179 

Great Virtues 211 

Grumbling Proclivity 154, 216, 220 

Halcyon Days • . . 185 

Henry Adams. 149 

Honored by Townsmen . 198 

Hostility to the Constitution 188 

" Independence Forever." . . . . . . , 200 

Intended for the Ministry 154, 155 

Interest in the Stamp Act, &c, 163 

Interview with the King 185, 186 

Jefferson 190, 200, 221, 223, 224 

John Fries 195, 221 

John Norton, . . . 159 

John Quincy Adams 210,211 

Josiah Quincy 166 

Letter from his Wife 191 

Letters of Hutchinson and Oliver 169 



INDEX. 307 

Left Congress. 178 

Life as a Lawyer. ......... 158 

Lord Mansfield 184 

Married. ........... 159 

" Midnight Judges." 190 

Minority of Votes 188 

Miss Abigail Smith. 159 

Mount Wollaston 149 

Mr. Gridley 104 

Mr. West 184 

Noble Act of his native State. 197 

Nominates Mr. William Vans Murray Minister to France. . 194 

Obedience. • 101 

Old Officials 192 

One Man of inflexible Integrity. 179 

One of the most important Acts of his Life. .... 181 

Otis and Adams 104 

Period of terrible Defeats. . 178 

Politician in the American Congress 172 

Position as Vice-President. ....... 189 

Presented to the King. . 185 

" President of three Votes." 190 

Private Life and political Defeat • 190 

Property and Persons. ISO 

Quarrels with Washington 200 

Religious Emotions and Views. 221, 225 

Representatives of Boston. ....... 107 

Resigned his Offices 184, 18G 

Retires to his Home 195 

Revised the Constitution 198 

Rev. Mr. Smith .... 100 

Richard Cranch 100 

Samuel Adams 104 

Selects Commander-in-Chief of Army. . . . 170, 202, 200 
Shays's Rebellion 187 



308 INDEX. 

Silas Deane. 179 

Stamp Act 1(55 

Studies • 151,152,157,158 

Studying Law. . • 156 

Teaches School. 153 

" The Boston Seat." .167 

Thinking 16* 

Thomas Shepard 160 

Treaty of Commerce. 18* 

Trouble with his Cabinet. 195, 196 

Tutors 151 

Twenty-six Letters. 182 

Two Parties in the new State 180 

Vergennes 181, 182, 18*, 185 

Vice-President and President • 150 

Visit to the Grave of Dixwell .173 

Went to England 18* 

West End 160 

Wooing 160,161 

Writings 178,198,226,227, 

Yielded to Washington 193 



INDEX. 309 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Aaron Burr 258 

Abolished direct Taxes. 266 

A fine Nature finely educated 283 

Anecdote of Ford's Tavern. 293 

A nice Observer of Nature 282 

Anxiety as to pecuniary Affairs 279, 280 

Associates. .......... 281 

Autobiography. . . t 2G3 

Birth, Boyhood, and Youth 240, 243 

Blame attached to Jefferson 2G9 

British Orders 274 

Burr, Vice-President 258 

Cabinet 259, 260 

Champion of the progressive Party. ..... 25G 

Chancery Court 262 

Close of public Life. 277 

Commercial States. . . . . . . . . 273 

Conduct of Affairs during British Invasion. . . . 284, 285 

Constitutional Scruples. 270 

Crisis of his Fortunes and his Life 280 

Death 281 

Decrees of Berlin and Milan 274 

Decrees of Emperor of France 271 

Democracy 260 

Destined to higher Services. 253 

Disliked by President Adams 256 

Education 235 

Educational Projects 279 

Embargo 271, 273, 276 

Entered College 241 

Estates plundered. 250 

Excise Law 266 

Executive of the United States. . . . . . . 253 

Expenditures 278 



310 INDEX. 

Explanation and Justification. ...... 275 

Extracts from the New Testament 292 

Faults 285, 286 

Fear of the Despotism of the Judiciary 265 

Federal Party dead 253 

" Few die, and none resign." . 260 

First Consul Bonaparte. ....... 269 

" First Families." 238 

Fondness for Reading and Study 281 

Friends 287 

George Wythe 242 

Good Temper. . 288 

Governor of Virginia . . . 242 

Hamilton. .......... I . 254, 255 

Hamilton's Life 287 

Headquarters of the Opposition 255 

Henry -Weatherbourne's Bowl of Punch 289 

Inaugural Address 259 

Intellectual Talents 281, 282 

Inventive and administrative Powers. .... 284, 285 
Isham Randolph 239 

James Madison. . 277 

Jane Randolph 239 

Jefferson and Burr 258 

John Quincy Adams 275, 277 

John Wayles 244 

Juggling Tricks of Diplomacy 270 

Kentucky Resolutions 257 

Laid the Axe at the Root of the Tree. . . ... . 247 

Lawyer and Politician 213 

Letter to Mazzei 286, 287 

Little administrative Talent. . . , . . . . 250 

Loss of Books 278 

Love for Science 283, 284 



INDEX. 



311 



Member of House of Delegates. 

Mental Powers. 

Monticello. .... 

Moral Character. 

Mr. Maury. .... 

Mrs. Martha Skelton. 

Mrs. Randall. 



250 

. 282, 283 

254, 277, 279, 2S9 

. 285 

241 

. 244 

288 



Negotiations and Purchase. 

New England. .... 

Not an Atheist nor an irreligious Man. 



. 267 

235, 237 

. 294 



Occupation of his last Years. 
Oliver Wolcott's letter to Fisher Ames. 
One Objection to the Constitution. 
Opinion of female Education. 
Opposed the establishment of a Navy. 
Orders in Council. . 

•Ordinance of the North-west Territory. 



. 279 

265 

. 262 

283 

. 260 

271, 274 

. 251 



Pardon. .... 
People's Convention. 
Personal Appearance. 
Peter Jefferson. 
Peyton Randolph. 
Popular and beloved. 
Poverty of the Militia. 
Power diminishing. 
Provision excluding Slavery. 



. 267 

245 
225, 226 

239 
. 246 

294 
. 249 

255 
. 289 



Quick Intuitions. 



285 



Recognized Leader of Congress. . 
Recommended Revision of the Laws. 
Relation to Slavery. . 
Religion. . . . 
Religious Views. .... 
Removed the Federal Leaders. 
Repeal of the Embargo. 
Report of the Declaration. 
Responsibility of the Federalists. . 



252 

. 248 

288 

235, 236 

291-294 

. 2G0 

276 

. 246 

258 



312 



INDEX. 



279 
Resumes the Projects of his Youth. • • ' '* # ' 2 6Q 

Rotation in Office. 

253, 254 

Secretary of State. • .289 

Sentiments on the Subject of Slavery. . • • ' ^ 

Serious Dilemma. • • ' ^ 24Q} 278? 2 81 

Shadwell. . 273 

Ship Horizon condemned. • • ' . . 252 

Singular Reception at Home. . .273 

Solution of Difficulties. • • • 210 

. . • • • 

Studies 

289 

Tarleton ■ . . . 295 

The great Debt the Nation owes to him. . • .264 

The Judiciary. •'*.'. . 277 

Theory of Commerce and Navigation. . 

^Trembles for his Country - in View of Slavery. . - 

. 279, 280 
University of Virginia. . ; . 24S 

Urges Emancipation. . 

. 27c 
View of leading Federalists. . • • ^ ^ 

View of the Cession of Louisiana. . • ' m ^ 

Views of Abolition. . ■ 236) *% 

Virginia. ... # ' . . 25' 

Virginia Resolutions. 

. . .. • 2Gl 
Whiskey Insurrection. ... 2G 

Writes to Robert R. Livingston. . 



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VOL. I. 

I. Speech at the Ministerial Confer- 
ence in Boston, May 29, 1851. 

II. The Boston Kidnapping — the 
Rendition of Thomas Sims. 

III. The Aspect of Freedom in 
America. 

IV. Discourse occasioned by the 
Death of Daniel Webster. 

V. The Nebraska Question. 

VI. The Condition of America in 
Relation to Slavery. 



VOL. II. 

I. The Progress of America. 

II. The New Crime against Hu- 
manity — the Rendition of Anthony 
Burns. 

III. The Laws of God and the Stat- 
utes of Men. 

IV. The Dangers which Threaten 
the Rights of Man in America. 

V. Some Account of my Ministry. 

VI. The Public Function of Woman. 

VII. Sermon of Old Age. 



Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, l vol., 

12mo, cloth. $1.50. 



I. A Lesson for the Day. 

II. German Literature. 

III. The Life of St. Bernard of Clair- 
vaux. 

IV. Truth against the World. 

V. Thoughts on Labor. 

VI. The Transient and Permanent in 
Christianity. 



VII. The Pharisees. 

VIII. Education of the Laboring 

IX. How to Move the World. 

X. Primitive Christianity. 

XI. Strauss's Life of Jesus. 

XII. Thoughts on Theology. 



Historic Americans — Franklin,Washington, Adams, 
and Jefferson. With an Introduction by Rev. O. B. 
Frothingham. (In November.) 

These volumes, ten in number, bound in uniform style, are put up in a 
neat box ; price for the set, $15.00. 

The Trial of Theodore Parker for the Misdemeanor 

of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping ; with 
the Defence. 1 vol., 8vo, cloth. $1.50. 

This work is not stereotyped, and a few copies only remain in print. 

The Two Christinas Celebrations — a. d. I. and 

MDCCCLV. A Christmas Story. Square 16mo, cloth. 
60 cts. 

A Critical and Historical Introduction to 
the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
ment. From the German of De Wette. Translated 
and enlarged by Theodore Parker. Fourth Edition. 
2 vols., 8vo, cloth. $7.00. 

"After I became a minister, I laid out an extensive plan of study, a contin- 
uation of previous work. I intended to write a History of the Progressive 
Development of Religion among the Leading Races of Mankind, and attended 
at once to certain preliminaries. I studied the Bible more careiully and com- 
prehensively than before, both the criticism and interpretation, and in six or 
seven years prepared an Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old 
Testament, translated from the German of Dr. De Wette, the ablest writer in 
the world on that theme, and the book as published was partly his and partly 
mine." — Vide Theodore Parker' 's Letter from Santa Cruz, pp. 5S, 59. 

A Sermon of Immortal Life. Pamphlet. 15 cts. 
The Material Condition of the People of 

Massachusetts. Pamphlet. 20 cts. 
Sold by Booksellers, or mailed, postpaid, on receipt of the price, by 

HORACE B. FULLER, Publisher, 
14 Bromfield Street, 

BOSTON. 



ROBERT OOLLYER'S 

SERMONS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 

NINTH EDITION. 

Price $1.50. Fine edition, bevelled boards, gilt edges, with a 
Photograph of the Author, and a View of his early Home, $2.25. 
Sent by mail on receipt of the price. 



ccpinsri ousts of the press. 

The broad humanity of the writer, his ready sympathy, his recognition of 
the superiority of true religion over all its forms, and last, but not least, the 
poetic quality of his thought, bespeak for him a hearing with all earnest men. 
As much as Mr. Beecher, he belongs to all the sects. — The Nation, New York. 

They are worthy of being well and widely read, for they stir the pulse, and 
animate to noble and worthy deeds. — Round Table, New York. 

Their peculiar charm is to be found in the freshness and glow of their sym- 
pathy with all human conditions. — Independent, New York. 

Every page is bright with good cheer, and presents considerations that are 
calculated to strengthen the best motives, lead to the noblest living, and inspire 
the heart with child-like trust in the Infinite Father. — The Liberal Christian. 

Mr. Robert Collyer's sermons have already passed through two editions 
since they were published a few weeks since. We believe that they will secure 
lasting favor. We remember no recent volumes of sermons, since the publica- 
tion of Mr. Martineau's " Endeavors after a Christian Life," which show, as 
these do, the result of long and deep experience and study. — Boston Advertiser. 

The result of Mr. Collyer's self-education, and consequent original style of 
thought, is manifest in these sermons. Healthiness is the term which may 
most properly be applied to them. There are no signs of dyspepsia or bron- 
chitis in them. You may be sure his lungs are sound, his chest broad, his arm 
strong, his head clear. They fairly glow with the ruddiness of fresh, out-door 
health. Their tone is always manly and sincere, and expression clear, concise 
and convincing. — Chicago Tribune. 

No thoughtful man or woman can read these sermons without gaining good 
thereby, — without having the heart set aflame by the love of God, and nature, 
and man, which is revealed in musical simplicity in every line thereof. —Repub- 
lican, Chicago. 

The themes are drawn from the every-day experience of life; from the hopes, 
the sorrows, the perplexities, the aspirations, of the human heart, and are 
treated with a wisdom, a gentleness, a pathos, a rich, loving sympathy, which 
raise them above the usual sphere of eloquence into that of persuasive and 
touching counsel. — New York Tribune. 

All of them are aglow with a sweet, fresh, spiritual life, that sheds a radiance 
of hope, and faith, and love on the darkest theme. Some of them are more 
than sermons, — they are poems, rich in thought, and beautiful in expression. 
— Portland Transcript. 

HORACE B. FULLEB, Publisher, 
14= Bromfield Street, 

BOSTON. 



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